


LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 


PRINCETON. N. J. 


PRESENTED BY 


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THE 
MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 





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THE MINISTER’S:” 
EVERYDAY LIFE 


BY/ 
LLOYD C. DOUGLAS 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1924 


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CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 





Published April, 1924 





THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
TO THE HONORED MEMORY OF A MINISTER; 


ALEXANDER J. DOUGLAS 


AN INTERPRETER OF LIBERAL THOUGHT AT A TIME 
WHEN IT WAS NOT UNCOURAGEOUS TO BE PROGRESSIVE; 
A COUNTRY PASTOR WHO CONSIDERED NO DAY TOO COLD, 
NO MUD TOO DEEP, NO JOURNEY TOO LONG, IF HE MIGHT 
EASE SOME BURDEN THROUGH THE PROFFER OF A 
FRIENDSHIP THAT ASKED LITTLE AND GAVE MUCH 


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PREFACE 


No vocation has created a more voluminous 
literature concerning itself than ours. Most of 
these books, written for and by preachers, rela- 
tive to our profession, may be read with profit. 

Even when the author’s technic seems ill 
adapted to one’s own disposition and mental 
habits, it always makes one want to preach 
better sermons after a session with a book treat- 
ing of practical homiletics; and many a jaded 
minister has been galvanized into a higher po- 
tentiality by some sincere colleague’s stirring 
summons to achieve more power in the pulpit. 

His friendly counsel, too, concerning the so- 
lution of parish problems and the better per- 
formance of pastoral duties—perchance quite 
useless when considered as a method—invari- 
ably prods one to a surprising outlay of honest 
zeal to do these things more joyfully and indus- 
triously. We cannot have too many books of 
this sort, produced by active members of our 
profession. 

It is to be observed, however, that a striking 
similarity of treatment distinguishes this type 
of literature. No matter how widely they may 
differ in temperament, training, and capacity, 
it seems that when ministers adventure upon 

vil 


Vill PREFACE 


fraternal admonition to their fellow craftsmen, 
they inevitably pursue the well-worn trail of 
their predecessors. ‘he first mistake they regis- 
ter is their attempt to cover entirely too much 
ground in the course of a single volume. This 
blunder is, of course, only a sign of their excel- 
lent intent. They are so eager to help their 
brethren to a fuller and happier ministry, that 
they canvass the whole field of this vocation, 
unable to pause very long at any single phase 
of it. 

The conventional beginning of such a book 
is phrased in hortatory terms. Here we are, 
they say, dedicated to the holy ministry. It 
behooves us to be sincere. Not much good 
can come of our pulpit performances if we are 
mere actors. Let us make sure of our recom- 
mitment to our task. As pastors, our profes- 
sion is so heavily charged with responsibility 
that it almost frightens one to consider its de- 
mands. And because this is, in very truth, the 
first and greatest fact at issue, the author cus- 
tomarily addresses himself to this part of his 
book with such vigor and at such length that 
by the time he has done reconsecrating us to 
the job, he has used up about a third of the 
paper his publisher has assigned to him for the 
recording of his ideas. 

This much achieved, and when our adviser is 
satisfied that we are sufficiently repentant over 
our laziness and properly ashamed of our poor 


PREFACE ee 


workmanship, he talks to us about the science 
and art of preaching. 

Advices on homiletics, whatever their source, 
are so uncannily alike that the recipient may 
be pardoned for suspecting the authors of col- 
lusion. Much time is spent with the funda- 
mentals of voice culture, respiration, and 
whether the sermon should be delivered with 
or without notes or manuscript. If the writer 
himself happens to pursue the method of walk- 
ing the floor, talking to himself, on Saturday 
nights, with the expectation of speaking as he 
is moved by the Holy Ghost, next morning, he 
is apt to talk about the sermon that is read 
from a manuscript as if it must be delivered in 
the manner of one reading the minutes of the 
last meeting. If he is a manuscript preacher, 
he is likely to refer to the extemporaneous 
method in terms which fail to elevate the ad- 
herents of that practice to upper seats in the 
synagogue where the intelligentsia are wont to 
foregather. 

Two-thirds of the book now having been 
written, the typical author of counsel to min- 
isters turns his attention to the duties of the 
pastoral office. By this time he is growing 
weary. He remembers what he has been told 
by others, and feels safe in repeating it. ‘The 
minister should study all forenoon, and call all 
afternoon. He should visit the sick, console 
the sorrowing, and be on the alert for oppor- 


< PREFACE 


tunities to be helpful to his fellow men. Not 
infrequently a daily programme is suggested, 
itemized by hours, which is about as useful as 
a crutch to a lame dog. What we need, ap- 
parently, is some technical literature, in our 
line, specializing on the details of the minis- 
ter’s pastoral life and the everyday demands of 
his office. 

The’ medical profession offers an excellent 
example in this matter. When doctors write to 
doctors, they restrict themselves to some nar- 
row field which they till intensively. One man 
produces four hundred pages on the eccentrici- 
ties of the thyroid gland; another compiles nine 
dollars’ worth of information on osteosarcoma; 
another limits himself to a discussion of the 
remedial agents used in the treatment of septic 
conditions. These men have nothing to say, in 
such works, concerning the honor, dignity, or 
ethical imperatives of their profession; not that 
these are negligible considerations, but because 
that phase of their calling deserves separate 
treatment. 

A little while ago, in a brief series of essays, 
published in The Christian Century, I addressed 
myself to the younger members of our profes- 
sion concerning some of the practical activities 
involved in our business. Judging from the 
voluminous correspondence which these articles 
produced, and the eager questions asked rela- 
tive to other pastoral problems of equal im- 


PREFACE xi 


portance to those under discussion, there is 
room for a book on this subject. 

There will be a minimum of talk, in this vol- 
ume, about the necessity of our being thor- 
oughly consecrated to our task. It will be 
assumed that all this is fully understood and 
appreciated. There will be next to nothing 
said here about our pulpit ministry; although 
it will be quite impossible to avoid all mention 
of sermon-composition, seeing this is a week- 
day task. 

It will suit my mood to speak by the process 
of direct address, mostly. I am offering my 
remarks to the youth of our profession—semi- 
nary students in training for the ministry, and 
young preachers who are meeting many of their 
pastoral experiences for the first time. I shall 
assume that the reader knows very little about 
the practical solution of parish problems. All 
the venerable veterans in the service are there- 
fore notified that the observations about to be 
vouchsafed are intended for the inexperienced 
youngsters of our profession. Our elders and 
betters will find very little here previously un- 
known to them; and it is cheerfully conceded 
that this thesis might easily be elaborated, to 
its vast improvement, by scores of them, in 
phrases more felicitous and in a tone of higher 
authority. 

Having staked off my claim, I invite the 
novices of our vocation to drape themselves 


xii PREFACE 


about the old man’s knee, and turn an atten- 
tive ear. If the oldsters wish to stand by and 
observe the clinic, they may consider themselves 
welcome. The seat of the scornful, however, 
has been temporarily removed from the oper- 
ating pit to make room for the class. 

Advance notice is hereby posted that I do 
not propose to be hurried. Neither shall I feel 
under compulsion to lay out all of my remarks 
after the manner of a new real-estate allotment. 
This is not a class in engineering. If it pleases 
me to ramble from the motion before the house, 
at any time—lest I forget to mention some 
matter that bobs up, inadvertently—I shall do 
it without so much as a by-your-leave. I may 
thus face my task with greater freedom; and, 
anyway, it is an old man’s right. 


Certain phases of the articles published in 
The Christian Century, to which reference has 
been made, are reproduced here, with the con- 
sent of the editor, to whom I acknowledge in- 
debtedness for this favor. 


CONTENTS | 
PR EEACE a) sie sce ae hitter: < csat et eee 
CHAPTER 
I. Tue Ministry As A PROFESSION . . 
II. THe Pastrorat RELATIONSHIP. . . 
III. Recerprs AND DisBURSEMENTS . . . 
LV Ae VIACHINERY is Noes yi fan Sh eas 
Via VISITING: THE SICK ves” ihe an eae 
Witmer ARTH TO. MARTH o) yiivcty ete? nae 
VII. For Betrer, For WorsE ..... 
VIII. Tue MintsTer’s Liprary .... . 


IX. Tue Minister’s Mam ...... 


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THE 
MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 





CHAPTER I 
THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 


O take immediate advantage of the priv- 

ileges of senescence, let me speak of my 

own feeling toward the ministry as a 
profession. 

I have recently celebrated the twentieth an- 
niversary of my ordination into the Christian 
ministry. I entered this profession, which was 
also my father’s, with both eyes open to most 
of its exactions, many of its sacrifices, and some 
of its rewards. Now that a score of years have 
been spent in it, were I again to choose a voca- 
tion, knowing all that I do to-day about its 
requirements and recompenses, I should un- 
hesitatingly ratify my earlier decision. 

I am not seeking to convey the impression 
that these twenty years have brought no prob- 
lems. Many a sunset has found me disinclined 
to sit down at the piano and sing “‘A Perfect 
Day.”’ There have been hours when, if some- 
body had offered me a nice, fat part as a shovel- 
wielder in a ditch, with the understanding that 
my immediate burdens would be lifted, I should 
have been disposed to follow him. To the best 
of my knowledge, this is the common lot of all 

i 


2 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


men, regardless of the nature of their employ- 
ment. They may expect an occasional dull 
day when life is something quite other than 
one grand sweet song. 

But, by comparison and contrast, I am con- 
vinced that our profession is about as free of 
annoyances as any useful vocation. Casual 
observation will assure you that all of the pro- 
fessions, and every other sort of retail busi- 
ness involving personal, hand-to-hand contacts 
with the public, confront problems equally or 
more difficult to solve. Perhaps a certain 
amount of obstreperousness on the part of a 
small percentage of one’s clientéle only makes 
the job more interesting. At least, much aid 
and comfort may be had through that philos- 
ophy when things are going at sixes and sevens 
in one’s work. 

Traditionally it is believed that the preacher 
suffers more than other men from the petty irri- 
tations of his office—annoyances put upon him 
by persons who, either in zealous ignorance or 
excessive overvaluation of their own adminis- 
trative and advisory talents, burden his life 
until even the storied grasshopper of Eccle- 
siastes has naught on him in that respect. 

If it is not positively immoral to seek solace 
by contrasting one’s portion with that of one’s 
less fortunate neighbors, the preacher may 
comfort himself by observing that his lot is no 
harder than many another whose actual re- 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 3 


wards are not so abundant as his own. How, 
for example, would you like to be the “‘trouble 
clerk”? at the telephone exchange? Perhaps 
it would be a good thing for some of us if we 
might contrive to swap jobs with these people 
for a week. We might return to our ministry 
in a more contented state of mind—assuming 
we still had our minds. What manner of poise 
must be exacted of him who, all day long, listens 
to the whines and snarls addressed by the in- 
furiated to the “‘adjuster’’ whom the gas com- 
pany has appointed as its official goat! What 
must be the length, breadth, and depth of 
her tranquillity who conducts the “complaint 
bureau”? in the big department store! One 
marvels at her spiritual resources—or is she 
paralyzed on that side, so that she doesn’t feel 
the blows any more? What kind of patience 
must the ticket agent possess who, every day, 
must listen, respectfully, to queries conceived 
in ignorance and brought forth in stupidity! 
How must the workman suffer who dares not, 
for the sake of his children’s bread and butter, 
offer any back talk to an insolent and unjust 
foreman! 

But these people, you say, are hardly to be 
compared to us. Their station in life is differ- 
ent. Very well; if that is the trouble, consider 
the case of the most prosperous merchant of 
your acquaintance; owner of his business, we 
will say. This man is obliged to deal, diplo- 


4 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


matically as possible, with all manner of troubles 
from without and within his establishment. 
The problem of petty pilfering alone demands 
the services of an expensive staff of experts in 
detection in the larger shops. “These employees 
are not policemen, with clubs and badges and 
raucous voices. They are there to handle, as 
graciously and considerately as may be, the 
surprising delinquency of persons from whom 
much better things than larceny might have 
been expected. They are there to make theft 
look as innocuous as possible to the astounded 
husband who comes in, upon polite request, to 
pay for something that accidentally fell off the 
counter into the lady’s hand-bag. 

Moreover, the merchant is obliged to deal, 
tactfully as he can, with the case of those who, 
while they do not. actually steal from him— 
fearing to be apprehended—perform the equiva- 
lent of it by taking his goods out on approval 
for a brief period, but long enough for them to 
break faith with him, and violate his confidence 
in them. The party gown is worn, that night, 
and returned to the store, next day, refused. 
The gloves are rendered unmarketable, but not 
unreturnable. Everybody has seen dull people 
handling dainty gift cards and de luxe editions, 
with dirty hands or grimy gloves, while the 
merchant stands by, helplessly, watching his 
good property depreciate to serve no better 
cause than to safeguard the sensitive feelings of 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 5 


ostensible customers who have learned a very 
great deal more about their privileges than 
their responsibilities. 

The merchant, then, deals with the thief, the 
near-thief, the liar, and the fool every day! 
Not once in six months—every day! He has 
added to this the problem of laziness, incom- 
petency, disloyalty, and dishonesty among his 
employees. ‘The most trusted man he has may 
turn up with a shortage. His best buyer may 
prove to be a grafter. The oldest clerk in the 
place may be operating a “fence”’ for crooks. 
He never expects to solve his problems. He 
only wants to keep them under fair control. 
For, while he is dealing, on the one hand, with 
a small percentage of thieves and half-wits, both 
in his patronage and his employ, the larger 
number, by far, are normal; and these he counts 
upon to provide him with his business pros- 
perity. 

The captain of industry, in the grip of eco- 
nomic conditions which, however he may de- 
plore them, are problems he must accept, 
mostly as they stand, carries burdens not very 
well understood by the rank and file of the 
people. On one side, he deals with an increas- 
ingly large number of workmen to whom the 
amount in the Saturday pay envelope is of 
much more concern than the quality of the 
labor they perform or the volume of produc- 
tion. Back of them, and prodding them to 


6 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


acts of insubordination, are the professional 
trouble-makers whose positions depend upon 
their activity in the cause of industrial discon- 
tent. It is difficult for the big man in industry 
to ascertain exactly who is loyal and who is 
not. He may be disposed to deal generously 
with the loyal and efficient. Frequently he is 
disappointed and chagrined to find his trust 
violated. On the other hand, he is the servant 
of a directorate. Back of the directors are 
the stockholders. Both sides—the capitalistic 
forces and the laboring element—are out to get 
all they can, almost by any hook or crook. 
Add now to this his problems of competition 
with similar concerns whose management may 
be utterly unscrupulous—and you have dished 
up a mess that is far from palatable. 

Consider the physician’s problems. Patients 
who quit him for another doctor never bother 
to explain their action. He does not know 
whether he unwittingly said something that 
caused offense, or was found unsuitable pro- 
fessionally. He is frequently called out at 
3 A.M. to deal with the hysteria of somebody 
who needs only to be spanked; but he is ex- 
pected to be gracious, attentive, and anxiously 
concerned. He may be doing his utmost at the 
critical stage of a pneumonia case, and return, 
after an hour’s absence, to find that upon the 
advice of Auntie McFudgeon, next door, his 
treatment has been abandoned for hers. He 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 7 


may be on the way toward success with some 
tedious convalescent demanding rigorous hygi- 
enic and dietary regulations, and learn, one 
day, that his patient has discarded the whole 
regimen to espouse Christian Science. The 
chances are that after he has spent many weary 
weeks toiling over a ten-year-old whose legs 
were shrivelled with infantile paralysis, and has 
just begun to notice the first faint signs of im- 
provement, he discovers that the parents have 
decided to avail themselves of the services of 
some flashily advertised chiropractor who, six 
months earlier, was operating a jitney bus. He 
has been nursing a crippled back, with tireless 
devotion, and, maybe, no hope of material re- 
ward beyond the consciousness of good service 
rendered, and find, some day, that the patient’s 
silly parents have permitted an alleged divine 
healer to remove the brace, to the complete un- 
doing of all his labor. Yet one does not hear 
him complain; because, while he is dealing with 
a certain element that lacks the judgment to 
co-operate with him to their own advantage, 
there are many more who can be depended 
upon to obey his orders and treat his counsel 
with respect. 

How would you like to be the superintendent 
of the public schools, and spend a generous por- 
tion of each afternoon listening to fond mothers 
of impeccable small boys as they narrate the 
injustices their offspring have suffered at the 


8 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


hands of the gargoyles who pretend to teach, 
and irate ignoramuses who come to quarrel 
over the brand of biology taught in the high 
school ? 

So, if you will calmly survey the trying prob- 
lems of other lines of business than ours, you 
may reach the conclusion that our profession is 
about as free as any of them from the most 
disgusting irritations and annoyances. 

Sometimes I like to think of myself as an 
employee and the church as my employer. 
Considering our relation to be that, I am only 
fair and honest when I say that, as an em- 
ployer, the church has treated me squarely. 
Frequently I hear of ministers whose experi- 
ences are not so pleasant, and I have no occa- 
sion to doubt their word. Sometimes it hap- 
pens that a sleepy congregation will permit it- 
self to be controlled by a small lay leadership 
whose judgment is poor. Out of a situation 
like that there may arise a great deal of bother 
for the minister. It is possible for a very self- 
conscious official board to make things hard 
for their spiritual adviser. Sometimes the pru- 
dential committee is disgustingly frugal; made 
so, however, by long struggle to stretch an in- 
significant total of receipts over an alarming 
bill of expenses. And if it seems imperative 
that the minister must be cautioned about 
preaching on_ this-that-or-the-other subject 
which infuriates our wealthiest contributor, 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 9 


let the preacher bear the fact in mind, however 
indignant he may be, that the fiscal problems 
of the church are very real to the men who have 
become custodians of them. ‘Thirty pieces of 
silver loomed up rather impressively to the 
man of Kerioth, after he had been squeezing 
mites and farthings for three years in an effort 
to preserve the solvency of the Apostolic Col- 
lege. Don’t misunderstand me. I am _ not 
trying to apply the soft pedal to any pulpit 
utterance which needs to be made in the cause 
of pure and undefiled religion. When a thing 
simply has to be said, it has to be said, even if 
the whole Board of Trustees walks out in a body, 
and the wealthy contributor has a fit! But, 
sometimes it is something that really could go 
very well without saying. At all events, do 
not forget that the prudential committee has 
its troubles. I am informed that it is at this 
point that many ministers experience their 
chief annoyance. 

My memory goes back to some of the try- 
ing events in the ministry of my father. En- 
tering the profession after fifty, and by way of 
circumstances which, while they constitute the 
most interesting story I know, were not con- 
ducive to the receipt of calls to city churches, 
his pastorates were rural charges. He never 
aspired to any other fields than these. His 
salaries were small, which did not matter 
greatly, for his own wants were simple, and 


10 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


my mother was an excellent manager. I never 
once heard him complain about the size of his 
income. An unfailing sense of humor sus- 
tained him, sometimes, in moments when, but 
for his ability to recall some petty performance 
on the part of his official boards as a screaming 
farce, he might have been completely over- 
whelmed with disgust. Having left an honor- 
able and lucrative law practice to become min- 
ister to a group of struggling little churches, at a 
salary of four hundred dollars per annum, plus 
a house, it is doubtful if he could have endured 
the slow grind of voluntary poverty with any 
other attitude than the ability to see its humor- 
ous aspects. 

Uncle Noah S., superintendent of the Bethel 
Sunday-school, when approached by a mem- 
ber of the Bethel church, shortly before Christ- 
mas, soliciting a contribution toward a gift for 
the minister, replied that inasmuch as he had 
been their Sunday-school superintendent for 
twenty years (which was all of fifteen years too 
long for any man to be in that position), he 
thought it would be pleasant if the gift were 
made to him instead of the preacher. Said 
Noah: “Make me the present, and I shall give 
the minister the equivalent of it.” And be- 
cause he was the most important man in the 
congregation, subscribing twenty dollars a year 
to the church, and superintendent, and Deacon 
for Life, they complied with his request, hurry- 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 11 


ing to the parsonage, however, to report the 
incident. 

Having already discovered the exact dimen- 
sions of Uncle Noah’s microscopic soul, my 
father waited, with eager curiosity, the prom- 
ised dénouement. Holidays were long passed, 
and it had begun to seem as if Noah had for- 
gotten, when, one Sunday, our family was in- 
vited to drive home with the old fellow for 
dinner. After the feast had been properly dis- 
posed of, and his populous household had been 
called into the big living-room where the guests 
waited, impatiently, the bestowal of an equiva- 
lent of the gold watch he had received from the 
Bethel Christmas-tree, Uncle Noah strode ma- 
jestically into the foreground, his hands behind 
him, evidently holding the gift. He made a 
little address, in which he expressed his loyalty, 
admiration, and friendship for his pastor; ex- 
pected to make him a present; couldn’t think 
of anything he valued more highly than the 
product of his own pet bees, which he had come 
to love as tenderly as a father loves his chil- 
dren; and, with a flourish, brought forth a 
quart jar of strained honey! 

My father replied, gravely and graciously, 
with words which I would give much to be 
able to recite verbatim. As nearly as I can re- 
call, he told Uncle Noah that while the gift was 
far too precious to use in any ordinary manner, 
due to its sentimental value, it would hence- 


12 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


forth occupy an honored place upon the mantel 
at the parsonage; and it would be our delight, 
pursued my father, to tell the beautiful story 
to all the friends from Bethel who, from time 
to time, sat with us about our grate. I don’t 
know what the watch was worth, but I am 
very sure my father, through the years that 
passed thereafter, had a great deal more fun 
with that jar of honey than he ever could have 
had with the watch. 

In another parish it was customary for the 
“joint council’’—representatives of all the off- 
cial boards of the six churches in that “charge” 
—to assemble at the parsonage on a certain 
Saturday afternoon at the close of the church 
year, to settle up. There was a deacon at the 
Mount Hope church (I have changed the name 
of that institution because a few of Philip’s 
heirs and assigns still reside in the neighbor- 
hood, and I bear them no grudge) who, for 
many years, had hauled the last load of clover- 
hay to the preacher as a gift. On the occasion 
of the annual meeting of the “joint council” 
to which I refer, the Mount Hope congregation 
was found to be four dollars and seventy-five 
cents short of meeting its not excessive pledge 
toward my father’s salary. Philip was prob- 
ably worth fifty thousand dollars, and there 
were three or four other farmers in that church 
who rated as highly in this world’s goods. The 
deputation from Mount Hope tugged at their 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 13 


whiskers, at a complete loss to solve the prob- 
lem of their deficit. Presently a light broke 
in the eyes of Philip. ‘“‘Parson,”’ he said © 
shyly, “I reckon I'll hev t’ charge yuh fer that | 
air clover-hay, this time.” My father smiled 
and replied: “Very well, Philip; how much was 
it worth?” “About five dollars, I cal’late,” 
Philip answered. “Then I owe you a quarter, 
don’t I?’ Philip chuckled and “’lowed” that 
was so. Father handed Philip the coin, and 
Philip put it into his pocket. There were 
eighteen men present, and not one voice was 
raised in protest. [hese men loved my father 
in their dumb, stupid, cloddish way, and he 
knew it. Doubtless, they all wished this trans- 
action might have eventuated in some other 
manner; but they had no remedy to offer. 

Of course a situation like that is the preach- 
er’s own fault. I do not presume to pass cen- 
sure upon my father. If he blundered, it was 
an error of his tremendously big heart. He 
permitted people to impose upon him in this 
way. But, practically considered, I do not 
believe it was very good for their souls to be 
allowed to conduct themselves so. It would 
have been in the interest of their salvation to 
have heard a few remarks, occasionally, on the 
fine virtue of being decent to their minister as 
an employee. 

In my own experience, there has been no 
meanness shown toward me by the officers of 


14 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


the churches I have served. I trust it may 
not sound too bumptiously impertinent when I 
say that I would not have permitted it, in any 
case; but it never became necessary for me to 
clamor for my rights. As to my wages, I have 
always been paid, promptly, all that was due 
me. My income, through the years, has com- 
pared very favorably with that of the majority 
of those who subscribed toward it. Moreover, 
I am disposed to believe that it always came 
pretty close to being my earning capacity, for 
if I had been worth very much more I would 
have had bids for my services in larger amounts. 

In these days when so very much is being 
said about ‘‘an underpaid ministry,” I often 
wonder if we have not talked more than neces- 
sary on that subject. It has never been my 
right or duty to inquire how many of my con- 
fessedly underpaid colleagues might have in- 
creased their wages by donning some other 
uniform, but I have some private opinions on 
that matter locked in my desk to be published 
posthumously when I am safe from the re- 
marks which verily would be their reward. 

If one may take the risk of being irritatingly 
candid, the less talking you do about “an un- 
derpaid ministry”’ the brighter will be your 
own chances to refute that statement as it 
might apply to your case. Most people are 
too much occupied with their own affairs to 
make a meticulous invoice of their neighbors’ 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 15 


actual value. They accept others at their own 
self-rating, just as the fire-insurance agent takes 
your word for it that you have a thousand 
dollars’ worth of furniture in your house. Only 
when there has been a fire does he come around 
with a pencil and tablet to investigate the exact 
state of your worldly effects. Likewise, it is 
only when your personal value to society is in 
question that the public goes to the bother of 
making a serious inventory of you. Ordinarily, 
it rates you at your own appraisal of yourself. 
If, therefore, you go about saying to a genera- 
tion that estimates one’s worth mostly in terms 
of money that you are underpaid, most peo- 
ple will catalogue you with all the other under- 
paid persons of their acquaintance—an esti- 
mate which will not only do you no credit but 
actually jeopardize your chances to improve 
upon your condition. 

It is one thing for a man voluntarily to as- 
sume a life-work inadequately remunerated, 
preferring to derive his happiness from his op- 
portunities to serve than from pleasures pur- 
chasable with a large income. It is quite 
another thing when, having entered upon that 
profession, open-eyed and fully informed as to 
its financial limitations, he sourly frets and 
complains. Doubtless, if I were speaking to 
laymen, I would add another paragraph or two, 
relative to this matter; but I am not now talk- 
ing to them, but to you. If your people are 


16 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


behaving meanly toward you in this matter, re- 
fusing to give you as much as you are rightfully 
entitled to, you would better leave them; for it 
is a clear case that you are doing them a bad 
turn by remaining to be treated in a manner 
that militates against their own sense of honor. 
Resign, and let some other man come in and 
do for them something that you have appar- 
ently been unable to do. Accept the call to 
that other church which has offered you the 
larger salary representing your present earn- 
ing capacity. Very brutally—if no other church 
has indicated that you possess a higher earning 
capacity than you now have—what makes you 
think you are getting less than you are worth? 
Let me repeat: if I were speaking to laymen, 
I might approach this subject from another 
angle. 

You will find, if you have not already discov- 
ered it, that there are many subtle temptations 
in our profession. If some ministers are full 
of whine and whimper about their hard lot, 
their exacting duties, the heavy burdens put 
upon their time and strength, it is largely the 
fault of a well-meaning laity. One of the pop- 
ular delusions about our business is that it 
overworks us. Of course this is a pet American 
obsession. Seven persons out of every nine, in 
this country, are indulging in such foolish talk 
about themselves, obviously to create the im- 
pression that their services are in great de- 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 17 


mand. You will do well to avoid contracting 
this silly habit of chattering about how busy 
you are. Beware of beginning it; for it is as 
dangerous as a drug addiction. Once you get 
your little piece down pat, and find yourself re- 
peating it, on all occasions—too busy to eat, 
too busy to sleep, too busy to study, too busy 
to do much but talk about how busy you are— 
you'll never get over it! It becomes an obses- 
sion, a mania, a psychoneurosis! If you've 
begun it, stop it, while it is yet day! 

Well-meaning old ladies in the congregation 
will tell you that you are working yourself to 
death. If they prefer to believe this, so be it 
unto them; let them believe it. But do not 
permit them to make you believe it. You are 
not working yourself to death. Not often 
does a minister step into an untimely grave 
from overexertion. It is a known fact that 
persons of our profession are considered a pre- 
ferred risk by life-insurance companies. One 
splendid old insurance company restricts its 
clientéle to ministers, and is thus enabled to 
offer rates which not only insure you at a much 
lower cost than you can buy such protection 
from any other concern, but, at the same time, 
insures you against life-insurance agents—which 
is not to be sneezed at by one who places so 
high a value upon his precious time. 

Of course, if it should come to the sorry pass 
that you do actually work yourself to death, 


18 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


which is extremely unlikely, that will not be 
an unbecoming way for one to die who has 
pledged himself to follow the leadership of a 
man whose career closed at age thirty-three— 
but the chances of your surviving the exactions 
of your job are excellent, if the records in the 
office of the Board of Ministerial Relief mean 
anything at all. 

When, therefore, solicitous friends seem dis- 
posed to mourn your impending departure, a 
tragedy superinduced by heavy labor, embrace 
the opportunity to set them right on this sub- 
ject. It will give you a chance to offer some 
constructive counsel concerning the importance 
of our disposing of this i..sidious “‘busy bee”’ 
which has fatally stung the poise of so many 
otherwise efficient people. Many members of 
our profession are making themselves utterly 
ridiculous with their running about, watch in 
hand, mopping a perspiring brow, as they at- 
tend, apparently single-handedly, to the world’s 
salvation. Perhaps the greatest contribution 
you can make to this hysterical generation that 
gallops through life as if pursued by the Furies 
is in offering a living example of poise and tran- 
quillity. He whom we attempt to serve once 
said: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”’ This 
was one of the most intriguing of His invita- 
tions to the public to adopt His way of life. It 
is to be doubted if you and I, as His ambassa- 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 19 


dors, will ever be able to make this alluring 
precept sound sincere and convincing unless 
we cultivate other habits of mind and conduct 
than those which now propel us about, panting 
and puffing, in a state of perpetual stampede, 
as we rush from one mighty event to another. 
I hear them saying at big conventions: ‘The 
King’s business requireth haste!’ Well, may- 
be so; but try to plan your own daily programme 
so that you will remind people more of a prophet 
than a medal-winner of all the track events at 
a field meet. 

I have discoursed upon this matter at some 
length because it well deserves some serious 
thought. You young fellows are beginning 
your ministry at a time when the whole world 
is bewildered, distracted, mentally dishevelled ! 
If you give it anything worth having, that be- 
quest will be a new sense of calm and quiet 
trust; a sense of steadiness. You cannot do 
that if you live your own lifeon the run. More- 
over, there is a whole heap of near-humbuggery 
involved in the things we say, or imply, about 
our overcrowded schedule. The majority of 
us have sinned egregiously at this, from the 
least unto the greatest. Not long ago, a really 
great man of our profession, having finished an 
epoch-making speech, upon being pressed to 
remain for a moment to meet a committee 
where his counsel might have been helpful, an- 
nounced, breathlessly, that he had just time 


20 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


to make his train; had to get that train to make 
connections with another appointment. He 
went to the hotel, and spent the remainder of 
the evening as the centre of a group of admiring 
friends, who had persuaded him to stay over 
until morning. I heard the story told, next 
day, in a company where there were a half- 
dozen young preachers present. They chuckled. 
They will forget the incident, in time, I dare 
say. “Clay feet ?’”—they will admit it of their 
idol; but they will remember that his head was 
gold. Now that good and great man was not 
conscious of perpetrating a wilful deception. I 
can imagine that he has come by this state of 
mind a little atatime. He began it by answer- 
ing all comers, when they inquired: “Well, 
doctor, how are you to-day?” ‘Oh, I’m busy, 
desperately busy—driven—driven—driven!”’ 
Pish! Tush! And nonsense! 

People will be hovering about you with hot- 
water bottles, urging you not to go out minus 
your overshoes; sending you ear-tabs, wristlets, 
shawls, and cushions at holidays. They will be 
dreadfully stirred up if you have a cold in your 
head. Your sneeze will excite more anxious 
comment than your neighbor’s gall-stones. 
Should you pound your thumb with the ham- 
mer, the casualty will be town talk for days. 
The poor dear hit his thumb—he did. They 
can’t help it, apparently. That’s the way every 
church treats every preacher, so far as I know. 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 21 


You’ll have to make up your mind to bear it 
with whatever grace you have. Once in a 
while it gets to be about all a regular he-man 
can stand; but there is positively no way to 
deal with it, for it is all done with the very 
best intent in the world. They honestly love 
you, partly for yourself, but mostly for the 
ofice you hold. We Protestants may chatter 
as glibly as we like about “a universal priest- 
hood of all believers,”’ but race memory, wherein 
is built the layman’s reverence for his spiritual 
father, still drags the public back to the old idea. 
You are in a peculiar line of business, and don’t 
you forget it! The last thing you want to be, 
on earth, is a priest, perhaps; but that’s pre- 
cisely what you are, in the opinion of most 
people, albeit they might stoutly resent your 
being called by that title. You are, whether 
you like the idea or not, more of a symbol than 
an executive. People who want to do some- 
thing for the Lord, and are unable to express 
themselves adequately in that direction, are 
going to take it out on you! They will pity 
you. They will pity you because you have to 
work so hard. If you are caught in a rain- 
storm you will surely be wetter, in a given 
length of time, according to their judgment, 
than any other kind of a man. Your discom- 
fort will be more acute. You will be more 
likely to suffer from your experience. I say, 
make up your mind to go through it. It is 


22 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


our common lot who belong to the priesthood. 
But, listen—don’t get to thinking this way 
about it yourself! In the name of all that’s 
honest, don’t pity yourself! If they want to 
crowd their affectionate little attentions upon 
you, for the reasons indicated above, let them. 
It’s good for them. In many cases it is about 
the only tangible expression they are able to 
make of their love for the church. But you 
must be steady in your own mind! Don’t let 
it spoil you! Many ministers, of bright promise 
in youth, of unquestionable talent and excep- 
tional gifts, have permitted themselves to be 
utterly ruined by the devotion, solicitude, and 
well-meant attentions of their people. If you 
cannot be a real man in this business, get out 
of it while there is still time to take up some 
other profession! We’ve quite enough molly- 
coddles in our guild now without bidding for 
any more. If this sort of thing is spoiling you, 
look for another kind of a job. The ministry 
isn’t the only career in which a man may ac- 
ceptably serve his Master. Sometimes I think 
that for some men it is probably the only 
career in which they can’t! 

When Jesus wants to go up to Jerusalem, 
and it is evident that the trip will involve grave 
danger to His life, the senior deacon pleads 
with Him not to do it. Mary breaks a box of 
ointment and pours it over Him. The dis- 
ciples are distressed because, having wrestled 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 23 


unavailingly with a storm, they must awaken 
Him to ask counsel. All this because they 
loved Him. They loved Him as a friend; they 
loved Him more as a symbol of the eternal. 
But it did not spoil Him; and although He 
had been the object of the warmest tenderness 
they knew how to exhibit, and the most senti- 
mental solicitude it was in their power to ex- 
press, when the hour came for Him to push 
them all away, that He might rise to the full 
stature of His courageous manhood, the records 
show that the martial spirit with which He 
shouldered His last burden compares very fa- 
vorably with any other act of heroism ever pre- 
sented to a world in which deeds of valor have 
not been few. 

As a little lad, I was aware of the fact that 
our place was always waiting for us, when we 
arrived in a new community. If it is not 
stretching a point to speak of our “social posi- 
tion,’ in the small towns wherein our lot was 
cast, that position was assured from the mo- 
ment we stepped off the train into the arms 
of the reception committee—bless ’em !—nice, 
comfortably stout matrons who would insist 
upon kissing one, just because one was the 
minister's laddie. To be sure, we were poor, 
and our clothing was probably not of the pre- 
vailing vogue; though I don’t recall that this 
fact ever gave me any concern as a little boy. 
People could not dress modishly on four or five 


24 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


or six hundred dollars a year—not even in the 
days when the great American dollar was a 
more notable institution, as to its purchasing 
power, than now. Our furniture was about 
what you would imagine furniture to be that 
had been purchased out of that kind of an in- 
come, and taken on rough rides, again and 
again; for rural preachers did not remain very 
long in a “charge” in those days. But, our 
place was always made for us, socially. My 
father was one of the most influential men in 
the community. He did not have to earn it, 
though he could have done so. It was his by 
right of his ofice. My mother was looked up 
to by the best women of the town. She should 
have been; she deserved to be—but she came 
by her position as my father had come by his: 
it was the office that made us. 

Whatever we did was more or less a public 
event. Never having known any other mode 
of living than this, I have not permitted it to 
cause me much worry. But, even so, the lot 
of “the preacher’s kid”’ is not always an un- 
mixed delight. The same sort of fawning so- 
licitude which is the minister’s portion, by vir- 
tue of his position, is exhibited, to a degree, 
toward the whole household of the prophet. 
If the youngster has any sense at all of the 
serious obligation he owes his father, to walk 
circumspectly, he is almost sure to develop 
into what the parish calls “a model boy,” 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 25 


which will make him magnificently despised by 
his contemporaries. Presently he will face the 
problem whether he is to be, in very truth, the 
fine little fellow who will add lustre to his 
father’s reputation as a prophet, in which posi- 
tion he will live the life of an outcast in his 
relationship to his natural social group; or de- 
cide to show his schoolmates that he is a regu- 
lar feller, despite his hereditary place in life. 
Now, if you never were a “preacher’s kid,” 
and haven’t had a chance, consequently, to ex- 
perience the sensations involved in that posi- 
tion, keep these things carefully in mind when 
you deal with your own boy’s problems. Re- 
member that while your boy is the minister’s 
son, heisaboy. If he is approximately normal 
(I say “approximately”? advisedly; for it is 
scarcely possible that he can be entirely normal 
for reasons just indicated), he is almost sure to 
make mistakes of disobedience, wilfulness, and 
the general cussedness to which our human 
flesh is prone. Sometimes he will seem to be 
a bit more naughty than absolutely necessary, 
even for a normal boy. ‘This will be due to his 
anxiety to show his friends that there is nothing 
uncannily holy about him, merely because he 
dwells under your roof. Be very sympathetic. 
Believe me, his problems are grave—far more 
grave at age fourteen than yours were at 
twenty-one! Let him live a normal life, in so 
far as that is possible. So soon as you are able 


26 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


to do so, send him away to school. You had 
better send him elsewhere to an academy than 
to the high school in your own town, if you can 
possibly contrive to meet the expense. Violent 
protest will be raised, I am sure, against this 
declaration. It is possible that you, yourself, 
are shouting: ““No! No!” So we disagree on 
that point; do we not? ‘That doesn’t neces- 
sarily make either one of us right. As for my- 
self, when young, my love for my father was 
sufficient to hold me in leash against my 
natural inclinations to have some friends; but 
you may take my word for it that I was a very, 
very lonely little boy. And whenever I ‘was 
felicitated, by our parishioners, for refusing to 
do whatever it was that the boys of my age 
were doing, against their parents’ wishes, I de- 
spised them with all the fervor of a soul that 
was raging at the inhibitions put upon me by 
virtue of my obligation to. my father. Deal 
with your boy very carefully and understand- 
ingly, or you take the chance of seeing him 
ruined for life. I mean that! It’s just that 
serious ! 

Before you decide, however, not to have any 
children, on account of the risks involved in at- 
tempting to bring them up properly, you should 
be informed that, not infrequently, a minister’s 
child turns out well, in spite of these condi- 
tions. In “Who's Who,’ one name out of 
twelve is of a minister’s child. 


THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION 27 


Now that I have indicated a few of the perils 
of a profession that makes one an influential 
citizen and an object of public attention, I 
should have stated only the negligible end of 
the case were its advantages to be overlooked. 
It surely means a great deal to a man to occupy 
a place where he can capitalize every talent he 
possesses. When the young physician comes 
to town, he may, by dint of diligent applica- 
tion to business, make a place for himself in the 
course of five years. For a long time he must 
content himself with dignified starvation, and 
be satisfied with a practice that would make him 
laugh if it were not quite so pitiful. If in five 
years he has arrived, townspeople comment 
pleasantly upon the startling suddenness of his 
general acceptance in public regard. Let him 
remove to another town, no matter now capable 
he may be, and he has it all to go through again. 
The same thing goes for the lawyer. But the 
preacher is a person of consequence before he 
has had time to unload his freight. ‘This is a 
perquisite of our office which, while it has its 
perils, has also great advantages. Such a singu- 
lar privilege carries with it a large responsibility. 
Not only may the minister step immediately 
into a place of prominence in the town where 
his work is located, but he must accept that 
distinction and make adequate use of it. Let 
him bottle himself up, and refuse to avail him- 
self of the honors extended to him, by virtue 


28 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of his office, and he diminishes his usefulness 
to that community in exact proportion to the 
depth of his seclusion. Keep carefully in mind 
the everlasting fact that every privilege which 
one may honorably accept, in all professions 
and in all human relationships, is attended by 
a commensurate responsibility. Do not permit 
the exceptional privileges of your profession to 
spoil you, or lead you to a fatuous overvalua- 
tion of yourself, for they are not extended to 
you because you are William Henry Smith, but 
because you are an ambassador of God. 


CHAPTER II 
THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 


\ ’ 7 HETHER a minister is to succeed or 
fail in a given pastorate depends con- 
siderably upon the manner in which 
he begins his work in that community. Ours 
is a profession in which personality counts for 
a great deal. If, in the process of establishing 
connections with your new parish, the condi- 
tions are favorable for you to express, pleasingly 
and effectively, your personality, the chances 
are good that your ministry in that place will 
be successful. If the conditions are unfavor- 
able, you may find it an up-hill road, all the 
way. 

In your first parish you will, of course, be 
indicted at once on the charge of being young. 
Our business requires, for its proper perform- 
ance, a certain amount of self-possession and 
self-confidence. You will not have much of 
that, for obvious reasons. ‘This is, we will say, 
your first work. You are just out of the semi- 
nary. In an effort to counteract the almost in- 
evitable smile on the faces of the saints as they 
behold your attempt to perform, with an air of 
long accustom, certain services which they have 
good reason to believe is your initial experience 
of the same, you may be almost ghastly in your 

29 


30 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


seriousness. A far better attitude for you to 
take, in this predicament, is to begin your min- 
istry in your first church with the candid dec- 
laration that you have it all to learn—which 
will not be much of an exaggeration. Assure 
them that they must stand by, patiently ready 
to make suggestions, offer counsel, and see to it 
that your blunders are reduced to a minimum. 
In this way you can impute to your congrega- 
tion the responsibility for training you to be a 
minister to them and the other churches you 
are to serve in the future. A naive attitude of 
simple-hearted confidence in their willingness 
and ability to steer you rightly will commend 
you to their interest and affection much more 
surely and quickly than any pitiful attempt to 
dissuade them, by your assured manner, of 
their knowledge that you are a novice. 

But don’t carry this childlike ingenuousness 
too far. “Let no man despise thy youth.” 
Some things about your profession will have to 
be learned by the unpleasant process of trial 
and error; some things you will have to ask 
questions about; but there are a few things 
you will be entirely confident of—matters in 
which your own common sense will offer advice 
—and, when you know you are right, go ahead ! 
Don’t spend the first five years of your profes- 
sional life permitting multitudinous advisers, 
however well-meaning, to drag you about from 
one administrative policy to another. 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP § 31 


Let us talk frankly about a few of these prob- 
lems you are going to meet. In the first place, 
you will be obliged to have it out with your 
predecessor. No; he will not be there in per- 
son, but he will be there—never fear about 
that! Either he will have been a dismal fail- 
ure or a huge success, by the time you arrive. 
As a matter of fact, he may have been an ordi- 
nary, honest, capable fellow, whose ministry, 
while he was actually engaged in it, had excited 
neither cataclysmic applause nor hoots of dis- 
approval; but by the time you are located he 
will either have been canonized or anathema- 
tized as a success or failure. They will tell you 
all about him. If he is remembered in affec- 
tion, you will become almost too well acquainted 
with his story for your own comfort. His par- 
ticular points of merit will be recited until you 
know them by rote. If that is the sort of thing 
they like, you may decide, they undoubtedly 
like that sort of thing—so you will be tempted 
to imitate, in so far as you are able, the strengths 
of this good man. He was a wonderful mixer, 
an adept story-teller, the life of the party. 
Perhaps your own temperament does not qualify 
you to shine, with a brilliant lustre, in that rdle. 
If that is the case, don’t make a monkey of 
yourself in an effort to be the exact replica of 
your predecessor. You, too, have some admi- 
rable points of strength, though they may not 
lie in the field of comedy. Ascertain early as 


32 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


possible what features of your ministry are 
‘most effective; what things you do best, and 
‘ with the finest results; what things are most 
rewarding to your own sense of duty fulfilled 
—and concentrate on those things. If they 
are vastly different from the specialties of your 
predecessor, so much the better. You will in- 
sure against comparisons and contrasts in which 
one of you may come out badly. 

If your predecessor was a failure, you will 
hear about that, too; and unless you have 
more magnitude of mind than everybody else 
in this sinful world, the reports of this poor 
fellow’s blunders will cause you but little pain. 
By the artful sparring of some undisciplined 
demon in your subconsciousness, over whom 
you have no control, it may come to pass that 
you involuntarily manceuvre conversations with 
the faithful to a stage where it is possible for 
them to chant another dirge over the remains. 
Of course you will come back with some pious 
palliation of his mistakes, which will but send 
the layman to his guns, again, to take another 
crack at the brother. I never cared greatly 
for David’s requiem over Saul. He had been 
the old gentleman’s gadfly for many, many 
years. Yes; | am well aware that Saul’s atti- 
tude toward David had been reprehensible, but 
David always managed to take care of himself. 
Whether he meant to do it or not, he under- 
mined the king’s influence, won the affection of 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 33 


the people, made himself a member of the royal 
family, and let Saul in for a wretched adminis- 
tration. I have always felt that David should 
have delegated the job of composing the requial 
poem to somebody else—Abner, for example. 
For the inevitable effect of David’s singing af- 
fectionate sentiments relative to his late sover- 
eign, in which he imputed to the old chap cer- 
tain virtues he did not possess, only made the 
royal minstrel more solid with his constituency. 
The less you say about your unsuccessful pred- 
ecessor, either in rebuke or commendation, the 
better for you. Keep away from the subject! 
If you observe that the conversation is begin- 
ning to skate around on the thin ice adjacent 
to that hole, divert its attention to something 
ten thousand leagues away ! 

What kind of a person are you going to be, 
in your attitude toward the people? There 
has been quite a clamor, in recent years, for 
what is known as a “human” preacher, by 
which the public means that it prefers a min- 
ister who is full of jovial kindness, ready wit, 
and an unreserved spirit of comradeship; a 
man who can be talked to without restraint. 
And because the young preacher knows that 
this is the case, he is sometimes tempted to be 
just a bit more chummy and confdential with 
certain of his pet parishioners than is necessary 
to qualify him as “one good sport.” 

Now and then a youthful prophet needs to 


34 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


be warned against an attempted insulation of 
himself against congenial contacts with the 
members of his parish; but not many men, en- 
tering our profession to-day, are in jeopardy of 
paying the penalty of cloistral habits or monas- 
tic mood. If any caution is in order, it must 
be a plea for more quiet reserve. He is very 
fortunate to whom has been vouchsafed the 
gift of wit and a keen appreciation of humor; 
but when this fact becomes the chief attribute 
predicated of him by his friends, the more 
serious and important functions of his ministry 
are rendered difficult. 

I take no pride in the fact that I am a solemn 
old owl. Doubtless it were better for me if I 
knew more funny stories, and was more of a 
cut-up. Sometimes I have almost envied a 
popular colleague of whom the neighbors said: 
“Oh, our new minister, Reverend O. B. Merry, 
came to call on us the other night, and he cer- 
tainly isa brick! Laugh? We all just howled!” 
But there is a temptation for the witty preacher 
to become slightly stampeded by the maudlin 
appreciation bestowed upon him; and, unless 
he enjoins a fine restraint upon this indulgence 
of his delightful gift, he may live to recall, with 
humiliating self-abasement, the occasions when 
he had played the buffoon and clown. ‘There 
is a happy middle ground somewhere between 
depressing solemnity and riotous foolishness 
which the minister will do well to locate, for his 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 35 


own safety. He must not be a frigid killjoy; 
but in his endeavor to avoid the gown and cowl 
it is not necessary for him to put on cap and 
bells. 

Here, again, I am obliged to remind you that, 
whether you relish the idea or not, you are, in 
a sense, a priest. As a young minister, you 
must keep this fact in mind. The public will 
seem to want you to be exactly like the lay- 
man. People want to see the preacher with 
his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. And just 
because they do want to see him with his coat 
off, there must be some very excellent reason 
for his keeping it on until the occasion arrives 
when there is a much better reason for his 
taking it off. Everybody seems to have a 
strong desire to get back of the stage to see 
how the storm and lightning effects are pro- 
duced; but once he has done so, the inquisitive 
is never again quite so deeply moved by these 
phenomena. 

Now, there-is a curious psychology at work, 
here, in your relations to your congregation and 
the general public. You are the exponent of 
that which is holy. You, yourself, are a norm 
of conduct in your community. Don’t shy off 
at that, as a responsibility you are unwilling or 
unable to assume; for it is a fact, and the sooner 
you accustom yourself to the idea the better off 
you will be. The people must have standards 
for all their action. You are a standard in the 


36 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


field of conduct. They all wish they might be 
better, morally, than they are; but most of 
them are not going to the bother of improving 
themselves. You are their moral norm. They 
are eager to decrease the length of the gap be- 
tween their morality and yours. They may 
not care to attempt that action from their end 
of the line; so they are relying—some of them 
—upon your decreasing this distance from your 
end of the line. They wish they were like you. 
They are more likely to try to make you come 
to them, and be like them, than to go to you, 
and be like you. I hope I am making myself 
clear. That is why they want you to take off 
your coat, and be “human.” That is why 
they chuckle so joyously over your slang. And 
if, when you slice a drive on the golf course, you 
should, on a certain great day in that town, 
let out a vigorous expletive sounding sus- 
piciously like “dammit!” their appreciation 
will know no bounds! They are rapidly bridg- 
ing the moral chasm between themselves and 
you, and it seems to make them glad. You are 
a “‘human” preacher. Yes, yes; but your min- 
istry to them is breaking down, and both you 
and they know it! Think these things through 
carefully; for it is dificult to amend whatever 
relationship you establish with people in re- 
spect to these matters. 

The young minister dares harbor no silly no- 
tions to the effect that he must assume a “ thus- 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 37 


far-and-no-farther” attitude toward his lay 
friends; but he should be aware that the less 
his parishioners know about his choice of 
breakfast cereals, the weight of his underwear, 
the name of his favorite hair tonic, his aches and 
pains, the little habits and whimsies of his pri- 
vate life, etc., the more effectively he will serve 
them in the graver emergencies of their lives 
when they look instinctively to him for spiritual 
guidance with an expectation probably far in 
excess of his actual ability to exercise the same. 

It is better, therefore, not to talk too much 
about yourself, your little likes and dislikes, 
your plans and hopes, or your former exploits, 
in college and elsewhere—regardless of their 
character, whether they are to be pointed to 
with pride or viewed with alarm. Your reminis- 
cence of the boyish prank you and three other 
fellows played upon old Professor Darius Pow- 
der may evolve into a felony which, had justice 
been served, would have jailed you for life, ere 
your tale has passed into the revised version. 
I hope I do the saints no injustice. For the 
most part, they are the best people on earth. 
But, you see, they like you so well that every- 
thing you say is of interest. They try to re- 
peat your best yarns about yourself to the 
neighbors. The neighbors, equally interested, 
perhaps, endeavor to spread these tidings as 
far as they will reach. By and by, somebody, 
whose affection for you is under somewhat 


38 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


better control, takes up a mangled fragment of 
your minstrelsy, and yelps it so discordantly 
that you, when you hear its echo, will call down 
imprecations upon your own head for being so 
foolish as to load your enemy’s gun, and wait 
his leisure to pull the trigger. 

It is extremely hazardous, also, to talk about 
your wife and children. ‘The quaint remark 
that little Bobby made to his small sister Ger- 
aldine, in the course of a juvenile theological 
debate, may be delightfully funny when you 
tell it; but the chances are too many that by 
the time this merry quip has been passed 
through its sixth translation, it will have as- 
sumed certain heretical tendencies which may 
reflect badly upon the type of religious instruc- 
tion offered under the minister’s roof. And 
your wife’s decision that it is cheaper, in the 
long run, to buy canned peaches than to can 
them herself may be a moral issue of great 
heat and four dimensions by the time the narra- 
tive has been manhandled for a month. Let 
me repeat: nobody wishes to do you or yours 
a wilful injury. They are interested in all 
your goings out and your comings in, from this 
time forth and forevermore; your downsittings 
and your uprisings. You are at once their 
employee, their priest, their moral mentor, their 
pet, their property. If you think you are not 
up to the strain of it, go into some other line of 
business, for you cannot alter these conditions. 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 39 


Be very prudent about extending confidences 
to intimate friends in the parish, concerning 
administrative matters, and under no circum- 
stances whatever may you talk to outsiders 
about any problem at issue in your church. You 
must not tell anybody of your disappointment 
over the fact that the Board of Deacons had 
not seen fit to approve your request for a more 
expensive contralto. You may consider it en- 
tirely safe to explain to the musical Stafford 
family, who put you up to this scheme, why it 
failed to be executed, but it is not safe to do 
so. The Staffords are very nice people. They 
would cut off a hand rather than do you dam- 
age; but they are human. I do not want to im- 
ply that you are to discredit the ability of any 
one in your parish to keep a secret; but it is so 
very much wiser not to have secrets. You will 
sleep better o’ nights if this is your fixed policy, 
and it will positively insure you against some of 
the most awkward situations that can possibly 
arise in the pastoral relationship. Incidentally, 
you might permit your wife to share your sen- 
timents on this subject, if they meet with her 
approval. The minister’s wife who, in sheer loy- 
alty to her husband, makes her disappointments 
articulate when the prophet has been unsuccess- 
ful in executing some pet plan of church adminis- 
tration, has unwittingly dealt him a wallop from 
which he will be long in recovering. The 
chronicles of our profession are loaded with the 


40 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


sad tales of brilliant and industrious ministers 
who, because their wives were exceptionally 
gifted in the high art of private conversation, 
talked these fine fellows into the shades of 
Never-never Land. You will find it to your 
advantage, also, to avoid talking too freely 
about parish matters in the presence of Robert 
and Geraldine. They are but little children, 
and you cannot expect them to exhibit, by 
tactful silence, a more excellent judgment than 
you yourself display when you give them the 
custody of information which should be re- 
stricted to your professional activities. 

Don’t talk too much about the details of 
your business. Don’t confide to Brown how 
you contrived to win the friendship of Smith; 
how you encouraged a larger subscription to 
the church from Jones; how you retrieved the 
waning interest of Robinson. Doubtless you 
showed good strategy in all these movements, 
but you certainly were not, much of a states- 
man when you let Brown handle the machin- 
ery whose operation should be a secret known 
only to yourself. What leads you to think that 
Brown may not consider it so clever a thing 
that, in genuine loyalty to you, he will report 
it to a friend, in testimony of your effectiveness 
as a minister? 

Never tell anybody anything that was said 
to you in the course of a conversation wherein 
a confidence was extended. Understand me— 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP § 41 


I do not mean that you might be so imprudent 
and unethical as to violate a confidence. I 
mean that if, in the course of your conversa- 
tion with White, which he opened by telling 
you that he thought of selling his car because 
his wife was leaving to spend the winter with 
her parents—a conversation which he devel- 
oped into a confession that he and Mary hadn’t 
been hitting it off very well, lately, and heartily 
wished there might be some better solution for 
their problem than a separation—should you 
be so injudicious as to remark, next day, to 
Black, who is in the market for a car, that you 
heard White say he wished to dispose of his 
car—and Black goes to White and inquires— 
and White asks Black where he heard that the 
car was for sale—he may have some reason to 
wonder how much more you told Black, in con- 
fidence, concerning your mutual friend. 
Increasingly, people will be inviting you to 
share their personal problems. Parents will 
confide to you their difficulties with their half- 
grown children; wives will tell you their troubles 
with their husbands; husbands will—not nearly 
so often—tell you their troubles with their 
wives; girls and boys will tell you about the 
difficulties they are having with their parents; 
men will come to confess their struggles with 
the things that have all but done them in— 
mostly drink and gambling; persons of both 
sexes will intrust you with the secrets of their 


42 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


love-affairs. Indeed, if there is anything in 
the whole range of private information that 
may not be disclosed to the minister, I should 
be greatly interested to learn what it is. ‘This 
phase of your ministry belongs exclusively to 
your professional life, and must not, on any 
account, get mixed up with your domestic life. 
These things are not confided to you in your 
capacity as a private individual, who has a 
wife, and children, and intimate friends, but 
solely in your capacity as a priest. I do not 
mean that you are to refuse to divulge these 
things to your wife for fear she might tell them. 
I mean that you are not to tell her because 
she has no right to know, herself! As a private 
individual, even you have no right to this in- 
formation. 

Somebody remarks: “Oh, isn’t it just awful! 
—Mr. Witherspoon is going blind—and the 
doctors say he will be entirely sightless inside 
of the next three months!” You are not to 
say: “Yes, it is very sad. I knew it was com- 
ing, last January.”’ Or, some one says: “‘Oh, 
have you heard that poor Mrs. Martin has a 
cancer?” You are not to reply: “Yes, I knew 
about that, six months ago!” Your wife an- 
nounces surprisedly: “I was told, this after- 
noon, that the Greenes are getting a divorce.” 
You are not to say languidly: ‘““Ah—so they’re 
getting it, are they? I knew they had it in 
mind.” Keep your professional life and your 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 43 


home life distinct, in respect to all confidences. , 
In the long run, this policy will provide its © 
own reward. 

I still have certain misgivings lest I may be 
misunderstood by your wife, in case she should 
read this book. I am sure she is a person to 
be trusted with a secret; but there are some 
things she has no right to know. Moreover, 
when she has been made custodian of certain 
secrets, it often places her in very embarrassing 
situations. I am fortunate in being able to 
offer this advice without the slightest feeling of 
restraint, inasmuch as not one misunderstand- 
ing or embarrassment has ever arisen, in my 
own experience, due to an imprudent word 
from the lips of the lady who shares my for- 
tunes. 

By reason of the fact that you are engaged 
in a line of business which deals with life in its 
most holy and intimate relationships, be care- 
ful about safeguarding the seriousness of these 
matters. Cute little babies sometimes do amus- 
ing things on the occasion of their baptism. 
If other people want to tell the story, and con- 
sider it jestingly, that is their right, but not 
yours. Because it is not a long step from the 
sublime to the ridiculous, there will be occa- 
sional experiences, at very serious moments, in 
your ministry, which would beguile a grin on 
the face of the gloomiest ascetic who ever prac- 
tises self-flagellation. Plenty of people can be 


44 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


depended upon to tell the story with high glee. 
They cannot be blamed. The less talking you 
do about it, and the less attention you pay to 
it, the better. Nothing that ever happened at 
a funeral, for example, is funny. Whether you 
are a fundamentalist or not, you may put this 
down as a fundamental. This is a hard-and- 
fast, seven-days-of-the-week, time-lock, sunk- 
hinge, twenty-two-carat fact !—there is nothing 
humorous about a funeral! You may be able, 
one of these days, to recall a few circumstances 
when it did seem as if matters were afoot, on 
such sad occasions, calculated to provoke a 
smile. You will have heard stories of unfore- 
seen and awkward events which transpired, in 
the course of funeral services, experienced by 
other ministers. But you must never repeat 
any story—real or fictitious—anywhere, to any- 
body, concerning anything that ever happened 
at a funeral provocative of a smile; for the very 
excellent reason that you have no way of know- 
ing that you will not be back, within a week, 
in that very house where your funeral yarn 
made such a tremendous hit, attempting to 
offer comfort to a bereaved family who cannot 
avoid remembering that you once found it pos- 
sible to see something funny in a funeral. All 
such jokes are absolutely on the index, in our 
profession. It is unethical to tell them. If 
you want to relieve your feelings by relating 
your deliriously funny experience to your col- 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 45 


league, with whom you sustain an intimate 
friendship, that is a matter for your own good 
judgment to pass upon. Prudence suggests 
that even this would be taking a risk. 

There is a certain school of humor which de- 
pends rather heavily upon diluted profanity to 
render it effective. You will do well to avoid 
repeating any story which requires the use of 
profane phrases. I am sure I do not know 
what there is about “‘hell”’ that seems so funny. 
If there is a hell, and if the allegations predi- 
cated of it are correct, it is to be suspected that 
nothing very funny ever occurs in that insti- 
tution. If there is a “devil,” and his tradi- 
tional disposition has been adequately set forth, 
he lacks something of being jovial. But, many 
a yarn would fail to classify as a humorous 
Narrative were it not for some episodal refer- 
ence to the place of everlasting torment or the 
person whose sole occupation is in the market 
of misery. Anybody can tell a story with 
swear-words in it and draw a chuckle. You 
should provide yourself with a repertoire of 
stories which do not depend for their success 
upon the number or intensity of the cuss-words 
involved. 

There are a host of undeniably witty stories 
based upon quaint perversions of Bible texts; 
but you tell them at the risk of making it difh- 
cult to repeat these passages of scripture cor- 
rectly in the pulpit without stirring the mem- 


a“ 


46 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


ory of certain people present who cannot help 
adverting to the good story you once told in 
this connection. ‘The tale of the little boy in 
Sunday-school who offered as his scriptural con- 
tribution, ‘Many are cold, but few are frozen,” 
had best be told by some one other than your- 
self if you expect, some day, to avail yourself 
of one of the most significant statements in 
the New Testament. 

Shortly before leading you into the belief 
that I am hoping your conversation may be 
literally restricted to “Yea, yea,” and “Nay, 
nay,” let me speak briefly of a profitable type 
of communication which involves no risks what- 
soever. You are to be loaded to the gunwales 
with stories about people you have known whose 
experiences are worth passing along to others. 
You should be in possession of a wealth of nar- 
ratives for the sick-room, concerning the fine 
type of Christian sportsmanship displayed by 
people under heavy fire. As your experience 
increases, you will be able to recall the case of 
the man whose physician had given him only 
ninety days to live, and who sent for you, not 
to condole with him, but to tell him how he 
might most effectively invest his last three 
months in high-grade service to his fellow men. 
You can tactfully tell the story, to the chronic 
neurasthenic, about the woman you knew who 
spent her last eleven years in bed, hopelessly 
crippled with rheumatism, practically dead ex- 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 47 


cept for her beautiful mind and radiant soul; 
and how men and women, singly and in groups, 
used to visit her for the sole purpose of sitting 
for a little while in the presence of one who 
wore her chains with majesty. 

The admonition you might heartily wish to 
extend to your friend and parishioner, the man- 
ager of the wheelbarrow factory, concerning 
the “human element in industry” can easily 
avoid any appearance of impertinence if pro- 
jected through a narrative. Having called at 
the office of Mr. Scroggins, the wheelbarrow 
man, and having queried him about the suc- 
cess of his recent fishing trip, you can be re- 
minded of a fishing expedition you once made 
on the Au Sable River, near Grayling. You 
will tell him all about the trout-hatchery, up 
there, and of the interesting Hanson family 
who originally planned and financed the under- 
taking for the benefit of sportsmen. ‘This will 
set you going on the subject of “Old Man” 
Hanson, who owns practically all the lumber 
industries in his town, and for forty years has 
kept so close to his men that he sustains a 
first-name acquaintance with them; how Mrs. 
Hanson continues to go about with baskets of 
jellies and other goodies, visiting invalids and 
shut-ins belonging to the families of their em- 
ployees; how there is a little heart-to-heart con- 
ference, every morning at nine, in which all the 
foremen connected with the shops are asked for 


48 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


suggestions and advice relative to the proper 
conduct of the Hanson business. You can tell 
him there never was a strike in Grayling, and 
never will be, so long as the “Hanson brand of 
Christianity” is working on full time. Tell the 
story, sometimes, of the man who said to you, 
after having told you of a long-term sorrow in 
his life, which he could neither amend nor re- 
linquish: “I’ve made up my mind, parson, that 
it’s part of my job!” 

Plan your conversation so that when you 
leave a place, where you have visited, the peo- 
ple will know but little more about you and 
yours than they knew before, but are possessed 
of certain new ideas about themselves: their pos- 
sibilities, their responsibilities. 

The better preacher you are, the more gifted 
you are sure to be in respect to creative imagi- 
nation. A sermon is a creation. Good ser- 
mons may not be produced by unimaginative 
preachers. No mental department of yours 
will be given more constant exercise than your 
imagination. ‘This talent is at once a gracious 
gift and a perpetual peril. You will fall into 
the habit of speaking hyperbolically and meta- 
phorically. Certain dull people, under the im- 
pression that the minister should always speak 
“by the card,” will take you literally when you 
had hoped to be understood as speaking alle- 
gorically. Pare down your superlatives. Deal 
vigorously with your exaggerations. Don’t let 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 49 


anybody form the impression that you are care- 
less in respect to the truth. A blunder at this 
point may heavily discount everything you say, 
in the opinion of some one who has been given 
reason to doubt your veracity, even though he 
should have come by that opinion in so small 
a matter as your description of the bass you 
caught, last summer, or the number of strokes 
in which you holed out at the Country Club. 
One of these days—apropos of the pastoral 
relation—you are going to leave Pikeville. 
You will have been there four years, we will 
say, and everything has gone along very nicely; 
but your church in Pikeville has always known 
that you were due for better things, if going to 
a larger town, a more prosperous church, and 
a more comfortable salary is a better thing. 
Assuming your denomination to be one in which 
congregations extend ‘“‘calls,’’ the process is 
likely to proceed somewhat as follows: Some 
Sunday, perhaps three men—strangers in town 
—will appear in your congregation. They will 
not sit together. But they will come and go 
together. They will ask the clerk at the hotel 
what he knows about you; and he will not know 
anything, good, bad, or indifferent. He may 
not even be able to inform them as to the loca- 
tion of your church in that little town. They 
arrived late on Saturday night, and will leave 
Sunday night, or early Monday morning. 
They are busy men, and must be back home 


50 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


as soon as possible. The only persons they 
will be able to consult, concerning you, will be 
people who may know nothing of local church 
affairs. The visiting committee will hear you 
preach. Chances are you will have been 
“tipped off” by some friend that you are to 
be looked in upon by a scouting party. If so, 
you will have two good sermons that day. 
Your people will notice the strangers in the au- 
dience. They will suspect the errand of these 
strangers. 

If you have made a favorable impression 
upon the committee, you will hear from them. 
You will not hear from them in a week. They 
have several other eligibles on the string. 
Meanwhile, you have made up your mind that 
if the call comes from Blinkton, you intend to 
accept it. You begin to grow restless. You 
begin to think of your ministry in terms of 
Blinkton. You were there once at a confer- 
ence. Pikeville shrivels daily into a place of 
decreasing significance. And then—one glad 
day—the letter comes, inviting you to preach 
a trial sermon at Blinkton. I’m not saying you 
should refuse to go and do it. Perhaps that 
is the only way you can make connections with 
Blinkton, and maybe you really should remove 
from Pikeville to Blinkton. I am only going 
to say that when and if you go to Blinkton, to 
preach a trial sermon, you appear there as one 
who has something to sell. If you stand pat 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP — 51 


on a fine resolution not to go to Blinkton to 
preach a trial sermon—informing that church 
that if it wants to hear you preach, the same can 
be accomplished by sending official representa- 
tives to Pikeville for that purpose—then, if 
Blinkton’s interest in you is deep and sincere, 
and your conditions are met, and you are vis- 
ited by a group officially empowered to do 
business—you are not a seller but a buyer; and 
you may take it from one who has served in 
both of these capacities that the latter rdle is 
much more satisfactory than the former. 

But, however these negotiations may be ef- 
fected, any keen anxiety exhibited by yourself 
to make early connections with Blinkton will 
militate against the success of your ministry 
when you have arrived there. The psychology 
of the salesman is far different from that of the 
customer. There is nothing reprehensible about 
being a customer. No business can be done 
anywhere, unless somebody is the customer. 
But, make up your mind which you are going 
to be in this case, and conduct yourself with 
the dignity befitting the rdle you have chosen. 

You cannot expect to keep this matter a 
secret, very long, in Pikeville. Plenty of little 
tragedies occur in this connection. Possibly 
Blinkton gives you every reason to believe, 
through the private correspondence of your 
new friends in that place who speak emphati- 
cally, albeit unofficially, of the impending call, 


52 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


that you are as good as moved. I knew one 
case in which the minister, having been assured 
that he was going to receive a call, went home 
and resigned, preached a farewell sermon, filled 
his front yard full of boxes—and had to take it 
all back! He “got away with it”’ too; and re- 
mained where he was for a long term of years 
enjoying a successful ministry. But I doubt if 
any such performance is to be recommended. 
Pikeville is going to know all about it. There 
are plenty of crisscross lines of contact be- 
tween Pikeville and Blinkton, no matter how 
far apart they may be in terms of railroad-track. 
The thing for you to do is to be entirely honest, 
candid, and fair to everybody at both ends of 
the line, including yourself. You should tell 
your church officials—not outsiders; remember 
that !—of the movement on foot. Inform them 
that Blinkton has your case under advisement; 
that you have not bidden for it (if you haven’t); 
that you do not know that anything is to come 
of it; but that you want to be the first to tell 
them, preferring that they should get the in- 
formation from you, as their employee, rather 
than from some other source. No matter how 
it comes out, then, you will have preserved your 
own dignity and have kept the faith with them. 
They will honor you for your frankness and 
fair dealing. If the call from Blinkton fails to 
arrive, they will not put that fact down against 
you. There are plenty of churches in this coun- 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP = 53 


try which are never going to give you a call, 
as both you and the deacons know; and noth- 
ing more serious has happened than that Blink- 
ton has been discovered to be one of them. 
For a week after the blow falls, you will feel 
depressed; but, cheer up. Hurl yourself into 
the Pikeville job with fresh zeal. Nobody is 
ashamed of you because some other church 
turned your way—and then decided you were 
not suitable. 

If you are sufficiently poised, the way to 
avoid a great deal of this sort of heartbreak is 
to delay going mentally to Blinkton until you 
have the call in your pocket. 

Let us suppose that the call comes through 
and you are now en route to Blinkton, at the 
request of the officers of that church, to talk 
over matters of business detail. “They will be 
very gracious and you will be a fine fellow. 
You will be so fine a fellow, indeed, that you 
may set yourself a pace that will make you 
perspire considerably when you return, later, 
to open up shop. Take your wife along on this 
trip. She may not wish to go. She has not 
been “called’”’ to Blinkton, she says, and very 
truthfully. But you take her along. Your 
earliest contacts with the chief members of the 
church in Blinkton, who are to be your closest 
friends, supporters, and advisers, will be more 
satisfactory if you form them with your wife 
present. You are aware that you are a different 


34 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


person when you are away without her—no 
better, no worse, but different. Make yourself 
known to these people exactly as you are going 
to be known by them in the future. 

The trustees will discuss the salary. When 
you met them before, they were in your hands, 
and they told you they were paying Brother 
Brown eighteen hundred dollars, and the use of 
the parsonage. You were not informed that 
this was what you were to get, if you came, but 
you assumed such to be the case. To-day, you 
are in their jurisdiction. ‘They will have a hard- 
luck story that would fetch tears to the eyes of 
an alligator. Business conditions are bad; the 
church has gone into the hole; there is quite 
a bit of floating indebtedness. Undoubtedly, 
within the space of a year, they can give you a 
raise; but, considering the fact that Brother 
Brown was an experienced man, who had been 
with them for eight years—and began at twelve 
hundred, and no house—and considering, also, 
the fact that you are but a young man, perhaps 
you could see your way clear to start on about 
fifteen hundred. Now you have met a serious 
predicament. The people of Pikeville know 
that you and your wife have gone to Blinkton 
to look at things. You have already fallen in 
love with Blinkton because you are regarding 
it as your future home. ‘The chances are good 
that you will consent to be taken at a bargain; 
but, if you do, you make a serious mistake. 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP 55 


The only way in which most people estimate 
values is in dollars and cents. If you accept a 
call to Brown’s pulpit for a nickel less than 
Brown received, you are confessing that you’re 
not the man Brown was and you know it. 
Everybody will know it. All Blinkton will be 
informed of it. You came at a_ bargain. 
Perhaps, in time, you may grow up, and be as 
good as Brown was; but, for the present, you 
are passing through your novitiate. 

Now, you had that experience to go through, 
doubtless, when you went to Pikeville, and 
accepted it as the most natural thing in the 
world. You were a novice, and admitted it. 
If they wanted to be small enough to beat you 
down when you were a mere fledgling, all well » 
and good. But Blinkton’s case is different. 
You are entirely justified in telling the trustees 
that if you are not the man Brown was, they 
had better shop around until they find some- 
body about his size. Have no fear that you 
are going to mess things up for yourself. If 
Blinkton really wants you, it will come through 
and do the right thing. Incidentally, you will 
win the silent admiration of every business man 
on that board. Even those who have been most 
ardent in their attempts to beat you down will 
admit to themselves that you are likely to suc- 
ceed, if this is your way of doing business. 
Don’t begin, in a new town, under the handi- 
cap of being known as something the committee 


56 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


grabbed off a bargain-counter. If they only 
had the wisdom to understand the psychology 
of this situation, they would know that it was 
to their own serious disadvantage that you 
should be started off, in their parish, with the 
story hanging to you that you had been bought 
cheaply—an inferior article. 

Close up your affairs in Pikeville so that 
every time your name is mentioned in that 
town it will demand respect. Keep your work 
going at full speed, until the last minute. 
Perhaps several months are to elapse before 
you actually sever your connections there. 
Don’t let things slump! Pursue your pro- 
gramme with diligence. Whatever plans you 
have already instituted should be executed 
with unabated industry and interest. But 
don’t start anything new! Don’t celebrate 
your departure by organizing some new society 
in the church—“‘The Heirs. of Promise’’—or 
something like that, to become a nuisance to 
your successor. Give him a chance for his life. 
Don’t begin to patronize Pikeville, because only 
two trains stop there daily, whereas Blinkton 
has one-man street-cars, ’n’ everything. These 
people have done a great deal for you, and you 
must not forget it. You went there as green 
as grass, and if now you are to be promoted, 
part of the reason for your advancement lies 
in the fact that they helped you develop. It 
is true that an excellent preacher can ‘‘make” 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP = 57 


a church; it is no less true that an excellent 
church can ‘‘make” a preacher. Leave them 
feeling cordially disposed toward you. Don’t 
go with a hip, hip, hooray! 

Meantime, during the period of your call and 
your departure, Pikeville will be looking around 
for a new prophet. Of course you will wish 
to be as sympathetic with that movement as 
possible; but the very best traditions of our 
profession certify that the less you have to do 
with that matter the better for all parties con- 
cerned. If you think you know exactly the 
right man, suggest his name. But don’t get 
to meddling in the negotiations. This is their 
business and his. You will do him no service 
by giving him a glowing account of his pending 
opportunity. Let him make his way in, with- 
out too much assistance on your part. Always 
there will be some who can remember that you 
exercised yourself so diligently in your friend’s 
behalf that they had to take him. ‘This will 
be bad for him, whether he succeeds or fails. 
Don’t be fond uncle to your successor. Let 
him hoe his own row. That’s positively im- 
perative to his making proper connections with 
the job. 

You are now packing to move to Blinkton. 
You will now discover how rich you are in this 
world’s goods. Perhaps it is at the close of the 
season—July, we will say. You are going to 
take a month’s vacation before you begin at 


58 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


Blinkton. The parsonage is being “‘ done over,” 
and it will be inconvenient for you to put your 
stuff into it now. You are advised to send your 
things to storage in Pikeville, and have the 
storage people forward them to you, later. 
Listen to me: don’t you make any such ar- 
rangement. ‘The storage man at Pikeville will 
sting you. No; I don’t care a nickel’s worth 
who he is. He may be the senior deacon. 
You gather up your traps and start them toward 
Blinkton. I wouldn’t trust the typical moving- 
and-storage concern any farther than I can 
throw this house in which J am sitting. 

Put your little things in small boxes. The 
smaller all your boxes are, the better you will 
like your possessions when they arrive. Don’t 
begin your packing by putting the screw-driver 
and the hatchet in the bottom of the first box. 
Skillets and china make a bad combination. 
Wrap every piece of furniture in burlap. Bur- 
lap is much cheaper than furniture. Stay on 
the job and personally supervise this operation. 
When you pack your sermons, go through them 
critically, and select ten of the best ones. Take 
the rest of them down to the furnace and burn 
them; that is, if you really want to develop 
into a preacher. 

Clean out the parsonage at Pikeville with a 
broom. Go over it again with a mop. Finish 
the job by polishing everything with a silk 
handkerchief. Some people may be able—have 


THE PASTORAL RELATIONSHIP = 59 


been able, I know—to leave an empty house a 
mess; but you must not. If there is a broken 
window-pane in the cellar, mend it. If your 
movers have skinned the paint off the front 
steps, repaint them. And thus you are off 
toward Blinkton with a clear conscience, and 
the people of Pikeville will rise up and call you 
blessed. 


CHAPTER III 
RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 
Y* have entered a line of business in 


which, if you perform it effectively, you 

can never become wealthy. You may 
marry money, or some rich relative may be- 
queath to you a legacy, or you may accidentally 
stumble upon some hidden treasure; but you 
must not expect to arrive at opulence by way 
of your profession. It simply isn’t there; and 
whatever estate you contrive to amass will be 
more a matter of saving than earning. 

The economic considerations of the minis- 
ter’s life are worth talking about; so we will 
give them some attention at this time. First, 
let us think about your receipts. Item one, of 
this exhibit, is your salary. Generally speak- 
ing, the more the church pays you, in salary, the 
more the congregation and the public will re- 
spect you, and the larger will be your oppor- 
tunity to succeed as a leader in your commu- 
nity. If they are paying you starvation wages, 
it is because they do not think very highly of 
your ability. Without putting intolerable bur- 
dens upon them, you should insist that they 
provide you with an income not only sufficient 
to cover your necessities, but to insure you a 

60 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 61 


comfortable margin for insurance and savings 
against the day of your non-employment. 
They have no right to have you in their em- 
ploy on any other terms; and when you con- 
sent to serve them on a basis which permits 
them to be unjust to you and your family, you 
are only certifying that as a moral leader you 
are not a success. 

This salary of yours should be paid promptly. 
The smaller it is, the more often you should get 
it. The church that pays a salary of fifteen 
hundred dollars a year, doled out in unstand- 
ardized lumps as it happens to be collected, 
sometimes as much as a month in arrears, 
should be forced to mend its business methods, 
or put up the shutters. Neither should this 
salary be extended in the nature of a gift. 
This part of the church’s dealing with you is 
strictly business, to be negotiated in the same 
mood in which the factory pays its employees. 

It has not been so long since the smaller 
churches supplemented the income of their 
pastor with donations. The custom may still 
prevail in some quarters, for all | know. Psy- 
chologically considered, the idea was not very 
good. It had a tendency to make the minister 
feel like a pauper, and placed him in a relation- 
ship to his congregation which was extremely - 
awkward, to say the least. He was obliged to 
appear grateful for gifts which, quite frequently, 
were of no use to him; and accept, with an air 


62 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of pleased surprise, a great deal of stuff which 
should have been marketed at the prevailing 
rate, and the price thereof appended to his 
salary. 

When my father received a call to a new 
“charge,” the promised reward was generally 
phrased: “Six hundred dollars in salary, the 
free use of the parsonage, and donations.” 
Shall I ever forget those donation parties? 
There would be, perhaps, as many as six 
churches in this combination under the pas- 
toral care. Each congregation would name a 
day for the descent upon the parsonage, loaded 
with munitions. Of course not every member 
of the congregation would appear in person. 
Some of them would send their gifts with the 
neighbors. But enough of the faithful would 
arrive to tax the housing capacity of our modest 
manse. Many of these gifts were of substan- 
tial value. Farmers used to come in with 
hams, sausage, apples, flour, corn, oats, and 
everything conceivable in the way of preserved 
fruits. The company usually arrived about 
IO A. M., and stayed all day. The women 
brought huge baskets of provisions for the 
dinner. I am not saying that the social aspects 
of the affair lacked value; for it gave the people 
a chance to become better acquainted with 
their minister. Neither am I pooh-poohing the 
generosity thus expressed. But, when they 
were all gone, our house was due for a com- 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 63 


plete cleaning, from cellar to garret. Perhaps 
as many as a score of more or less unsupervised 
little children would have had the run of the 
place all day. The farmers couldn’t help it if 
mud was fetched into the house on their feet. 
So, after the last cordial farewell had been 
spoken, and the ravens had flown away, and 
Elijah was left to reckon his accretions, the 
problem of making a fresh start in life was very 
trying. There was jelly on the banisters, mud 
in the parlor, chicken-bones in the best chair. 
The first important act was to itemize our 
gifts with a view to ascertaining how rapidly 
certain things would have to be eaten if we 
proposed to conserve them before they spoiled. 
If the donation party occurred shortly after 
“butchering,” in the fall, we would find our- 
selves almost embarrassed with our wealth in 
pork products. My resourceful mother always 
contrived to smoke and cure these meats so 
that there was but little, if any, loss; but it was 
a rather heavy responsibility to take proper 
care of so much stuff, on short notice. There 
was an unwritten law that the preacher could 
not sell any of these things; neither could he dis- 
tribute them to the poor, unless he was willing 
to take the risk of seeming to think lightly of 
somebody’s gift. Whatever the season had 
produced, on the farm, in greatest abundance, 
was naturally most in evidence at the donation 
party. Once there was an unprecedented crop 


64 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of apples in the country. Our establishment 
was nearly suffocated with apples and every 
imaginable apple product. When the good 
angels had left, my mother reported that there 
were eighteen gallons of apple butter. On the 
verge of tears, she said to my father: “‘ What in 
the world are we going to do with all this apple 
butter?” To which he replied cheerfully: 
“We'll paint the barn!” Of course I can’t ex- 
pect you to realize how deliriously funny all 
this was in our household. To understand it 
you would have to know my father’s story, and 
what a curious experience it was for a man who 
had been a successful and well-paid lawyer to 
have come into a position wherein apple butter 
was offered in consideration of professional 
services. 

This donation business, then, came along at 
frequent intervals. Six churches had it to go 
through; as did we. Six complete house-clean- 
ings per year. Six trying experiences of figuring 
a way through and out of a wide assortment 
of more or less perishable provisions which 
could neither be sold nor given away. The 
farmer, of that period, never slaughtered cattle, 
and only rarely a sheep. He killed hogs. He 
brought nice bits of his hogs to us. It would 
have been absurd for us to buy beef when it 
was with the utmost industry that we could 
eat the pork donated to us. I have not yet 
entirely recovered an appetite for pork. 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 6s 


I do not recall that we were ever presented 
with clothing. We children were proud little 
rascals, and I doubt if we could have gone 
through that without a rebellion. We were en- 
tirely willing to wear the home-made garments 
fabricated by our mother’s patient and inven- 
tive fingers; but I doubt if we would have con- 
sented to wear anything that had been previ- 
ously on duty elsewhere. There are tales of 
ministers’ wives who were presented with hats, 
capes, dresses, and shoes which had done ser- 
vice before they became her property. I can- 
not think that the Lord ever required anybody 
to suffer an experience like that. 

Donation parties always afforded the mem- 
bers of the church an opportunity to know each 
other better. The women would appraise the 
various articles as they were brought into the 
kitchen, and many an interesting conference 
would result when some well-to-do family’s 
generosity was called in question. ‘‘Him!— 
Peter Marks!—five pounds of salt and a peck 
of potatoes! He ought to be put out of the 
church!” There were plenty of times when 
they cheerfully bore one another’s burdens; 
but on donation day they invoiced one an- 
other’s burdens, at the parsonage, with un- 
disguised candor. 

Now I trust I am not making a mockery of 
the affection and loyalty of these excellent peo- 
ple when I smile over these events recalled 


66 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


from the days of my childhood. My father 
loved these genuinely good farmers, as they 
loved him; but if they had only known the 
depth of his self-abasement, as he consented to 
accept his living on such terms, they might 
have devised a different programme of recom- 
pense for him. 

A little while ago, before I drifted into this 
reminiscent mood anent donations, I was say- 
ing that your salary is the first item in your list 
of receipts. Comes now the parsonage. While 
you live in that house, you are the custodian 
of it, and it is up to you to keep it in repair. I 
do not mean that the expense of all repairs 
should be borne by yourself; but, rather, that 
you should keep your Board of Trustees in- 
formed concerning its condition. Don’t let this 
property run down. I am aware that there is 
a “Buildings and Grounds’? Committee; but 
it is part of your job to see that church prop- 
erty does not go to rack and ruin. Fresh from 
a board meeting where much talk was had of 
the necessity for economy—one of the most 
popular topics of conversation at such conven- 
tions—you may be reluctant to report, to the 
proper authorities, that the cellar wall under 
the parsonage needs attention; that the front 
steps are ready to fall down; that the plumb- 
ing is out of kelter; that the electric wiring is 
unsafe; that the furnace is impotent. But, 
whatever may be the apparent desire for fru- 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 67 


gality, manifest by the Board of Trustees, you 
will get but little applause from these men for 
neglecting to inform them, promptly, concern- 
ing the need of repairs at your house. 

While we are on this general subject, you 
may as well make up your mind to it that you 
are now, and are always going to be—no matter 
how conspicuously you may be located later 
—the actual custodian of church property; and 
if you think to win the approbation of your 
constituency by permitting their buildings and 
equipment to fall into decay, for the sake of 
paring down expenses, you are making a great 
mistake. True, you are not employed as the 
caretaker of the church property; but you had 
better take care of it, nevertheless. ‘The con- 
gregation will forgive you an occasional slump 
in the pulpit but it will view with much regret 
and distaste an unmowed front lawn, an untidy 
back yard, an untrimmed hedge, a gate off its 
hinges, unraked leaves, broken fence-pickets, 
unshovelled snow and ice on the walks, and an 
old shirt protruding through a broken window 
of the attic, at the residence of the parson. 

While you are ambling through your homily 
on Sunday night, some of your parishioners, 
whose upturned gaze indicates a state of holy 
contemplation of your sidereal remarks, may 
not be indulging in pious reflections at all. 
They are looking at an electrolier in the ceil- 
ing in which four lamps are burned out—the 


68 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


same four lamps which were missing last Sunday 
night and the Sunday night before that. In- 
deed, they are the same four dead lamps which 
were deceased six months ago. It is not your 
fault, of course. You arenotthe janitor. But, 
to be on the safe side, go over the whole plant 
occasionally, to make sure that such little mat- 
ters receive attention. After all’s said it 1s 
your responsibility and you must not ignore 
it. It will be a responsibility that you cannot 
shake off even in the years to come, when ex- 
perience, industry, and talent may have won 
for you a position in which you have much 
more to work with in the way of property. 

Much as you may wish it otherwise, the fact 
that the linen collars on the choir vestments 
are dirty is your fault. It is your fault if the 
church clock is ten’ minutes slow. It is your 
fault if, because the heating-plant has gone out 
of business, your congregation catches cold. 
It is your fault if the church steps are icy and 
somebody breaks his neck thereon. Of course 
it is not your fault, really and truly—but it will 
come to the same thing as if it were your fault; 
and do not forget this. 

It will seem to be your fault if the organ, 
because of some pulmonary infirmity, breathes 
louder than it squawks—to borrow a reference 
Mark Twain made to his accordion. Why 
shouldn’t you know something about the dis- 
orders to which an organ is prone? Now that 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENT — 69 


the high altar has been supplanted by the organ, 
throughout practically all of non-conformity, 
that instrument, which occupies a position of 
such prominence, should be well known to you 
both as to its outer aspect and its internal 
mechanism. If one of the Open Diapason pipes 
has contrived, by its measured vibrations, to 
jar loose a bit of art glass from the lead in a 
neighboring window, so that the glass rattles 
every time that pipe sounds, who has a better 
right to know exactly what to do about it than 
you? Ifthe “Swell to Great”’ plunger has gone 
on a strike, and the young lady organist is dis- 
tressed about it, and it is Saturday afternoon— 
too late to send for an organ-repairer—why 
should you not be in possession of the knowl- 
edge that will enable you to put it right inside 
of three minutes? You will be annoyed with 
the frequent indispositions of organs, all your 
professional life. A knowledge of their habits 
and the ills to which they are most frequently 
subject, will often serve you well. 

Let us return to the parsonage. Your church 
is your landlord. You are the tenant. The 
fact that you pay no rent is beside the point 
in this discussion. You pay no rent because 
your use of this house is part of your fixed in- 
come. ‘Therefore, the church is just as much a 
landlord and is under exactly the same obliga- 
tion to you as if you were paying a rental to 
a stranger. You are just as much a tenant 


70 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


and are under all the obligations of a tenant 
as if you were renting this house. If you never 
rented a house, and do not know what a tenant’s 
obligations consist of, you should inquire of 
your lawyer friend for a lease, and study it. 
If you break a window, you must restore it. 
If you burn out your furnace grates, you must 
buy new ones. It is always understood that 
electric lamps are provided by the tenant, 
though all matters of wiring, fixtures, etc., are 
taken care of by the landlord. If you want 
floor-plugs, in addition to those already pro- 
vided, that expense is on you. If the furnace 
is inadequate to heat the house, that expense 
is on them. See that they make you comfort- 
able. You need have no more reluctance about 
asking for such things than you would if you 
were renting the property from disinterested 
outsiders, and paying rent for it. Sometimes 
your timidity to make a reasonable request, of 
this kind, is to be construed only as a confes- 
sion of your precarious position in their esteem. 
If the roof leaks that is the church’s business. 
Report the matter and it will be attended to 
promptly. They always fix leaky roofs, on rec- 
ord time, because there is an old tradition that 
water, running down through a house, is bad 
for the plastering. 

If you should go to a church that has no par- 
sonage, and have been successful in promoting 
a movement to build or buy one, you will find 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 71 


it to your advantage to locate it elsewhere than 
immediately adjacent to the church edifice. 
The parsonage, hard by the church, is well lo- 
cated as to sentimental considerations. Other- 
wise, it is a poor arrangement. ‘To live beside 
the church means that you will be besieged, 
constantly, by a procession of agents, beggars, 
crooks, and leisurely persons who drop in to 
chat, on general principles. You are entirely 
too easy of access. If the parsonage is already 
located beside the church, you must live in it. 
If you have one to build or buy, take the advice 
of one who has tried it both ways—all ways— ' 
and reside a mile off. Unfortunately, too much 
of the minister’s professional life gets milled up 
in his home life, anyway. ‘The merchant leaves 
his store down-town, and goes home, in the 
evening, to dinner. His business is in one place 
and his home is in another. The doctor leaves 
his office, or the hospital, or the homes of his 
patients, and seeks his castle. He doesn’t roll 
his pills in the kitchen, at home; nor does his 
family eat its meals off his operating-table, at 
the hospital. His family life and his profes- 
sional life are distinct. If this were not so, the 
heavy exactions made upon him would drive 
him crazy. ‘Too often, the minister is unable 
to distinguish between his professional and do- 
mestic pursuits. Unless he takes steps to 
avoid this, as much as possible, he will find, 
presently, that he has no home life at all. 


72 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


Let us now do some thinking about the ways 
in which you may legitimately and dignifiedly 
supplement your income, which, so far as we 
have gone, is limited to your salary and your 
house. The question of fees for ministerial 
services deserves comment. ‘There is, first, 
the wedding fee, which is, by custom, your 
wife’s perquisite. Now and then a preacher 
will announce that he accepts no wedding fees. 
I cannot see what good may come of that 
policy. The bridegroom wants to do the cus- 
tomary thing by the minister who marries him; 
and, also by custom, the minister has a right 
to accept it. The preacher who refuses the 
wedding fee achieves little more than an em- 
barrassment put upon the bridal party. 

It is customary in some communities for 
the minister to issue a wedding certificate to 
the married pair. I have never done that vol- 
untarily. If they insisted upon it I gave them 
a simple little printed blank, properly filled, 
which the bridegroom could stow away in his 
pocketbook. I have never kept on hand any 
of those ornate things that are to be framed 
and hung in the attic. My father (kindly for- 
give these frequent references to that good 
man) used to have three styles of wedding cer- 
tificates in stock. A ten-dollar-and-up (it only 
rarely went up much higher) was entitled to a 
beautiful device, about seventeen by eleven in 
size, with nice little gold angels chasing one 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 73 


another around the margin, their arms full of 
flowers, and their clothes left at home. There 
were oval openings in the thing to contain the 
photographs of the principals and the pastor. 
My father’s picture went along with this com- 
bination premium. For five-dollar weddings 
there was another certificate, not quite so ex- 
pensive, bearing a picture of a wedding. It 
did not look like any of the weddings we ever 
had at our house in the old days, however. 
The bridegroom wore a frock coat, and the 
bride’s veil was most impressive. Anything in 
the way of a fee, from a sum under five dollars 
on down to a basket of plums, was recognized 
by a certificate printed in plain black ink, 
which I always believed was the best worth 
having of the whole assortment. I do not 
know that this scheme was original with my 
father. I rather think it was not. Perhaps 
it was customary at that time in country 
“charges.” Doubtless the neighbors could tell, 
without inquiring, almost exactly what one had 
paid for one’s wife. 

I do not accept baptismal fees, because I 
consider this service part of my business as a 
pastor for which I am being paid by the church. 
Once in a while, a father, trained in some de- 
nomination in which the baptismal fee is prac- 
tically obligatory, has insisted upon handing 
me a dollar which I presented to the baby as 
a slight token of my regards. I do not accept 


74 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


funeral fees. This is a debatable matter. 
Many times situations will arise in which it 
would be much less awkward, for all parties 
concerned, if the fee were accepted. Now and 
again your refusal of such a fee will only leave 
the other man with a sense of an undischarged 
obligation on his hands and, instead of im- 
proving your friendship, it will put your re- 
lations under a strange restraint. But in the 
face of that occasional objection, I prefer to 
keep my sympathy off the counter. It is not 
a matter of whether they are able to pay you, 
or how much. There is a principle involved, 
quite apart from the dollars and cents. When 
it is definitely known—as it speedily will be 
known if you practise this policy—that you 
accept no pay for funerals, your services, at an 
hour when you may be of a great deal of com- 
fort, will be much more valuable than if you 
and they both knew that a settlement, in the 
coin of the realm, is to follow later. Certain 
exceptions may be made in the case of any 
considerable outlay, on your part, in time or 
travel, to attend a funeral in some other place 
than your own community. Let them reim- 
burse you for your expenses. ‘This is only fair 
to you and to them. 

So much, then, for the fees accruing to the 
minister in the course of his professional duties 
—one fee, the wedding fee, and that his wife’s 
by right of tradition. But there are some in- 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 75 


teresting by-products of your job which may 
as well be turned to profitable account. Every 
June should find you appearing, in surround- 
ing communities, to speak at high-school com- 
mencements. Later in your experience in- 
vitations will come to you without any effort 
on your own part to secure them; but, for the 
present, you must exert yourself, somewhat, to 
make these engagements. Your ministerial 
dignity will suffer not a whit if you prepare a » 
neat little folder, in early March, stating that — 
Reverend I. B. Reddy, of Blinkton, will accept 
a few engagements to deliver commencement ad- 
dresses, this season. You may print your cut 
on this folder, if so be that your face is an 
asset rather than a liability; and two or three 
brief press notices certifying that at the Odd 
Fellows’ Anniversary you made the finest ad- 
dress ever heard in Pikeville. As the years 
pass you will have better clippings than this, 
wherewith to fetch your oratorical wares to 
market; but this one is good enough for the 
present. Secure the addresses of school super- 
intendents and principals in towns near by, and 
mail your folders. Enclose a_ self-addressed 
postal card to encourage correspondence. You 
may receive a dozen queries out of fifty pieces 
of mail. The frugal ones will dislike to waste 
the postal card you sent them. You can write, 
stating your theme and terms. Don’t lay it 
on too thick, at first, when you fix the tariff. 


76 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


This avocation will become very profitable to 
you as the years give you more experience; 
but you cannot arrive unless you climb slowly. 
It is much better for you, this first year, to have 
three commencement dates at fifteen dollars 
apiece, and railroad fare, than one engagement 
at fifty. Be sure to get copies of the papers in 
the towns where you speak. Press notices may 
not mean much to the people who know exactly 
what such tribute is worth; but it is to be ob- 
served that lecturers still depend mightily upon 
them. You may be a very modest person, and 
hesitate to promote your cause by these meth- 
ods. If you will examine that kind of modesty, 
you may discover that, 1 in its last analysis, 1 it is 
the very last word in egotism. Well, it’s all 
up to you. If you would rather be dignifiedly 
reticent about these things, there is no law 
against it. If you wish to open a new avenue 
of service—for I can’t think of any more valu- 
able message than that projected to a group 
of adolescents on the occasion of their gradua- 
tion—you will be obliged to get your start 
through some judicious advertising. If my 
own experience is of any interest to you, in this 
connection, I am willing to tell you that I 
began this high-school commencement business 
in my first year out of the seminary, and have 
never missed a season since; have had, in recent 
years, as many as sixteen in a single season, 
which is about all one can do in that line 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 77 


through the brief period when such events are 
afoot. As your experience increases, your fees 
are better, naturally. 

You need have no misgivings about taking 
this time away from your local work. Much 
of this effort comes back, in full measure, into 
your church’s prosperity. The congregation 
takes a certain pride in the fact that their pas- 
tor is in demand for such service in other places. 
Not infrequently, some youth, at whose gradua- 
tion you spoke, will come to your town to 
enter business. Perhaps you are the only man 
in that place to whom he will apply for friend- 
ship. 

Then there are these luncheon clubs, meeting 
weekly, almost everywhere—Rotary, Lions, 
Kiwanis, Exchange, Civitans, Optimists, and a 
dozen more—in the market for after-dinner 
speeches. Except to seasoned speakers, who 
have won their spurs, these clubs do not ordi- 
narily pay large fees, but they are willing to re- 
imburse the unknown orator enough to be 
worth the bother. Make yourself known to 
these organizations, in neighboring towns; and 
slip away, occasionally, for a few hours, to fill 
such engagements. It will do you good. You 
will return to your job with fresh confidence. 
The experience of inspiring a group of business 
men—strangers to you—toward a higher type 
of thought and action, is going to be excellent 
training for you. The result of it will show up 


78 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


in your pulpit work. You will speak with 
more assurance and effectiveness. 

While we are thinking about this matter, there 
should be called to your attention certain prob- 
lems involved in such addresses (which you will 
deliver gratuitously, for the most part) in your 
own town. When you arrive in Blinkton, hav- 
ing finished a successful ministry in Pikeville, 
you will be amazed at the number of invitations 
you receive to speak for such organizations as 
those indicated above. And the Realtors will 
want you to talk to them, and the Merchants’ 
Association; the D. A. R. and the G. A. R., 
the W. C. T. U., the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. 
C. A., the Parent-Teachers’ Club, and the 
Knights of This-that-and-the-other. Before 
you realize it, you will be repeating yourself, 
over and over, before groups which overlap, 
as to personnel; and it will become apparent 
that you haven’t an unfired shot left in your 
locker. 

Be careful, therefore, that in your eagerness 
to make friends for yourself and your church, 
you do not accept so many outside engagements 
that you are unable to fill them with credit to 
yourself and your cause. They will all think 
quite as well of you if you go into this business 
cautiously, spacing your engagements so that 
you have an opportunity, in the intervals, to 
work up some new material. And do not per- 
mit yourself to become too optimistic about the 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 79 


returns which may accrue to your work in the 
church through your speeches before these sec- 
ular organizations. You may easily be de- 
ceived into the belief that the very excellent 
speech you made, at the annual “‘open-house 
night” of the Knights of the Gray Goose, will 
bring a large per cent of these gray geese out to 
your next Sunday morning’s service. Be ad- 
vised that very little of your extraparochial 
efforts, on the various local platforms and at 
club luncheon tables, will earn the reward you 
seek. If you are not on guard, you will dis- 
cover that the very best work you are doing, in 
Blinkton, is performed before groups of strangers 
to whom you are not obligated, and from whom 
you need expect nothing whatsoever either in 
the coin of the realm or in later exhibition of 
interest in your pulpit ministry. Don’t starve 
your own sheep while you offer the most suc- 
culent oratorical pasturage to these other flocks. 
Your first duty is owed to your own pulpit; 
and if you propose to scintillate, anywhere, do 
it there ! 

Moreover, this habit of accepting every invi- 
tation that comes along, to speak before every 
little club in town, is likely to have precisely ” 
the opposite effect upon your influence than 
the one you had hoped. It has a tendency to 
cheapen you and your message. Ina few weeks, 
if you pursue that course, everybody in town 
will have heard you. Many will have heard 


80 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


you a half-dozen times. Some will have heard 
the same speech more than once, pleasantly in- 
troduced with the same good stories. You will 
soon be an old song. All curiosity concerning 
you will have been appeased. If you are wise, 
you will decline many more invitations than you 
accept, for the first six months; and when 
you do accept these invitations, go there pre- 
pared to offer something constructive. You 
will be expected to entertain, amuse, and in- 
struct; and you can do all of these things with- 
out forgetting, for one moment, that you are a 
minister of the gospel. First, last, and all the 
time—you are a preacher! 

Experience will convince you that much of 
the seed you scatter, in this manner, is tossed 
upon “the highway’”—a hard macadam; but 
see that you sow it! Once in a while a grain 
bounces off into a bit of fertile soil. It might 
grow. But if you have a notion that you are 
doing valiant service for the kingdom, in di- 
vesting yourself of your best before these multi- 
tudinous secular societies, to the depletion of 
your pulpit power, you are laboring under a 
serious misapprehension. 

Whatever may be the demand made upon 
you for public addresses, from the platform or 
at the club dinner-table, it is to be hoped that 
you will never arrive at that point of self-infla- 
tion where you have won the consent of your 
own mind to stand up and gabble. If your en- 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 81 


gagements multiply until you have reason to 
suspect that your oratorical disbursements are 
in excess of your intellectual income, you must 
either increase your income or pare down your 
expenses. Otherwise, you are in danger either 
of losing your own self-respect, or falling vic- 
tim to a malady known to neurologists as 

“orandiose paranoia.” I do not know which 
of these conditions is worse, but they are both 
bad enough to warrant your keeping clear of 
them. 

It is easy to repeat the old speech; much 
easier than to go to the bother of preparing a 
new one. You cannot grow while the old is, 
in your opinion, good enough. Frequent bon- 
fires of old addresses will be among your most 
valiant and judicious acts. If, during the early 
years of your professional career, you avail 
yourself of every hour of leisure, and spend that 
time in painstaking study and skilful literary 
composition, you may have occasion to rejoice, 
at fifty, that you laid adequate foundations for 
an effective pulpit and platform ministry. 

The time will come when many duties and 
cares will crowd in upon you—accumulated re- 
sponsibilities you could not even stagger under 
to-day. If you are successful, it will become 
increasingly difficult for you to secure uninter- 
rupted blocks of time either for research or 
composition. So, the more successful you are 
planning to be later the more industrious you 


82 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


must be now, to learn to formulate your 
thoughts logically and to clothe them with 
vigorous and flawless rhetoric. 

And this reminds me that there was a definite 
motion before the house—a little while ago— 
relating to the occasional address as a source 
of income. You may take some thought now 
for your pen as a lucrative instrument, if com- 
position is easy for you. 

I hesitate somewhat to speak to you about 
the business of writing for print. If I thought 
you were good for a long, tedious, disappoint- 
ing experience in doing your level best, only to 
have your stuff come back to you, again and 
again, with a chilly little rejection slip enclosed, 
I could advise you, more heartily, to make this 
adventure. For the benefit of you who think 
you are up to that sort of misery, it may be 
said that here is a wide-open door. The world 
is fairly reeking with periodicals of all sorts. 
They must have copy. Somebody must fur- 
nishit. Ifyou have anything interesting to say, 
with your typewriter, there is no reason why 
your right is not as good as some other’s to help 
supply this demand. Of course you will be 
aware that a sermon has to be very, very ex- 
traordinary to win a place in a periodical that 
pays for articles. But there are plenty of 
topics which do not require homiletic treat- 
ment—matters of interest and profit. Perhaps 
you will wish to try your hand at this. If so, 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 83 


do not attempt to break in, at once, where the 
going is too discouraging. Do a little five- 
hundred-word essay for your local daily, now 
and then. Present it to the editor as a gift. 
Frequent publication of your articles will do 
you good in your church, and you will be gain- 
ing valuable experience in the art of composi- 
tion. So far as I have been able to discover, the 
way to learn to write is to write. There are 
helps to be had, loaded with good suggestions. 
You should provide yourself with some of these 
books, if you expect to take up this matter 
seriously. But, after all has been said on that 
subject, you will learn the most you will ever 
know about composition by composing. Gen- 
erally speaking, people write best about the 
things that interest them most. Young writers 
frequently waste their time and energy in writ- 
ing of matters with which they are not fully 
conversant. ‘There are two prime requisites to 
composition: first, you must have something to | 
say; and, secondly, you must say it interest- 
ingly. If you are asked by your local editor 
for a sermon-abstract of five or six hundred 
words, take your manuscript (let it be hoped 
that whether you used it in the pulpit or not 
you did write it out in full), and discard the first 
seven pages as an initial move toward arriving 
at what the editor wants. Lead your sermon- 
essay with the most interesting sentence in the 
production. Include no “Let us, brethren,” in 


84 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


your newspaper copy. The world is sick of that 
kind of lettuce. Indeed, the less of it that you 
administer from the pulpit, the more people will 
love you. 

If your salary will not keep you, and you 
have been unable to supplement your income 
by any of the processes suggested above, you 
may be tempted, in an hour of emergency, to 
turn toward certain ways out of your dilemma 
which will do you small credit. You may re- 
sort to selling books, taking orders for maga- 
zines, or even pocket your pride completely and 
sell washing-machines, flivver accessories, and 
almost anything. Shortly before you arrive at 
the point where you have found that, in your 
case, the ministry as a profession is not eco- 
nomically sound, and that, in order to keep 
yourself going you must turn to the field of 
commerce, it is to be suggested that you go 
over to commerce wholly—lock, stock, and 
barrel—seeing you cannot do both of these 
things at the same time with any credit to either 
commerce or the ministry. To be selling any- 
thing whatsoever—no matter how little or for 
what—puts you into a position where your 
ministry cannot amount to much. It is to be 
regretted that this is true; for you might turn 
an honest penny that way. There is nothing 
wrong about selling real estate, bonds, coal, or 
potatoes. But you can’t be a merchant and 
a minister! Either get out of the pulpit, or 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 85 


away from the market-place! The two things 
will not mix. Neither may your wife peddle 
soap. If the ministry cannot provide you and 
yours with a decent living, that is all the token 
you should require as notification that you are 
in the wrong line of business. 

We must have some talk about disburse- 
ments. You cannot afford to be shabby. You 
will be obliged to practise many economies; but 
don’t exercise all of your frugality in your 
clothing. Doubtless you will not be able to 
wear expensive clothes; but they should fit you, 
and they must be kept pressed and in good re- 
pair. You have no right to wear a torn collar 
or a ragged necktie. 

When you set up housekeeping, it is better 
to have a very few good things than eight 
rooms full of cheap stuff that you will despise 
and discard. Do not be too optimistic about 
your ability to take care of a large number of 
instalment purchases. Four dollars a month 
for a set of books, and five dollars a month for 
the vacuum cleaner, and ten dollars a month 
for furniture, and twenty dollars a month for 
the flivver totals a third of your wages, per- 
haps; albeit each item had seemed quite nego- 
tiable, considered separately. 

You are anomad. You are here to-day and 
gone to-morrow. The men of your acquaint- 
ance chaff one another about their debts and 
overdrafts. They sometimes talk about it as 


86 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


if it were funny. It will not be so funny if 
you do it. 

Carry all the life insurance you can afford. 
Begin to take it out as early as possible, to secure 
the lowest rates. Don’t take any other kind 
of life insurance but that offered by the Pres- 


¥ byterian Ministers’ Fund of Philadelphia, until 


you have your fifteen-thousand-dollar limit with 
them. Agents will try to persuade you that 
they can sell you safe and reliable insurance for 
as little or less cost than the company I have 
mentioned. But they are unable to prove it. 

Do not dabble in stocks. You have no 
money to throw away. Any stock that is ped- 
dled among preachers, notoriously on their up- 
pers, and more often than otherwise known to 
be incompetents in business, is almost sure to 
have something the matter with it. Be nearly 
as careful about buying bonds. They are al- 
ways more readily negotiable, you will find, 
when you buy them than when you attempt to 
sell them. Four per cent in a savings-bank 
means more, in the long run, than eight per 
cent arrived at by some other process. 

In conclusion, you should be made aware of 
the fact that although your salary will be in- 
creased, as the years pass, your expenses will 
jump up to meet it. Additional demands will 
be put upon you, every time your income rises. 
You will never be rich. Make up your mind 
to it, and find your happiness some other way. 


RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS 87 


And if ever you become curious to know ex- 
actly what kind of an institution hell is, accu- 
mulate a miscellaneous assortment of unpaid 


bills. 


s 


: CHAPTER IV 
MACHINERY 
i is barely possible you have been informed, 


at the theological school, concerning the 

structural organization of the church. If 
you are a non-conformist, you will probably 
have most of your dealings with two boards— 
the deacons and the trustees, or whatever is 
the equivalent of this in your denominational 
nomenclature. The personnel of the Board of 
Deacons may be somewhat similar to that of 
the Board of Trustees. Not infrequently, at 
the annual congregational meeting, men whose 
terms have just expired on the Board of Trus- 
tees, and are therefore ineligible to re-election, 
will be made members of the Board of Deacons, 
or vice versa. But you will discover that the 
mood and conduct of a deacons’ meeting is 
quite different from a meeting of the trustees. 
At the deacons’ meeting, the chairman opens 
the session by saying: “‘ Brother Wilson, kindly 
lead us in a word of prayer.” ‘The trustees’ 
meeting is formally in session when the chair- 
man says: “Jim, pass the matches.” 

The deacons are supposed to attend to such 
matters as passing upon the qualifications of 
applicants who wish to unite with the church, 
and judgment upon the names of members 

88 


MACHINERY 89 


whose disinterest has earned their release from 
that relationship. ‘They advise on all matters 
pertaining to the religious services; supply the 
pulpit in the minister’s absence with suitable 
clergy; look after the problems of parish relief; 
and counsel with the pastor on the problems 
of religious education. They are in charge of 
the sacrament of Holy Communion, as to its 
administration, and the upkeep and prepara- 
tion of the equipment used in that rite. 

The trustees attend to all matters of a pru- 
dential and fiscal nature; care for the property; 
prepare the budget; raise the money; pass on 
all questions of expenditure; execute all legal 
documents relative to church business. 

You are expected to attend the deacons’ 
meetings. The trustees will invite you in to 
their meetings when they want you. Don’t 
try to make mere rubber stamps out of these 
official bodies. The more responsibility you 
put upon them the better they will serve you 
and the institution. 

It is not very likely that your first work, or 
your second, will be in a church that can afford 
a Religious Education Director, to supervise 
the Sunday-school. This will be your respon- 
sibility. There will be a superintendent; but 
you will have much to say about the policies. 
The Women’s Society will not need much more 
than your friendly interest and occasional word 
of appreciation. ~The women will like you just 


90 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


as well if you don’t attempt to exercise too 
much leadership over them, in their society. 
Above all, do not permit yourself to be led 
into any sort of controversy with them over 
their own administrative procedure. If you 
find yourself longing for some kind of excite- 
ment, get a long pole and poke a big dent in 
the side of a yellow-jacket’s nest; but let the 
women run their organization to suit them- 
selves. They will do it properly; do not fear. 
The Men’s Club is a difficult thing to keep in 
motion, as you will discover. The women can 
sew for the poor, knit for the Children’s Home, 
bake and cook for the church’s social affairs, 
and do all manner of dorcan (how do you like 
that ?) philanthropies; but we men, in a similar 
organization under the auspices of the church, 
are but a bouquet of lilies who neither toil nor 
spin. The Men’s Club can, and does, get to- 
gether, occasionally, for a supper. Speeches 
are made, and everybody says we must get 
busy, now, and make this club amount to some- 
thing. But it doesn’t amount to much, and 
never will, unless there are specific errands and 
definite services laid upon its constituency. If 
you find that your Men’s Club can be mauled 
into life about twice per annum, and that it 
spends the rest of the time in a coma, do not 
become so depressed over your failure that you 
take your own life. So far as I know, they are 
nearly all alike in that respect. 


MACHINERY gi 


Men are going to spend just about so much 
time and energy in the church. You may be 
blessed with a really famous teacher for your 
men’s class in the Sunday-school. He can get 
them out at nine-thirty on the first day of the 
week, in large numbers. He delivers an ad- 
dress which they enjoy, and which is about all 
they can hold for the present. So, when he is 
through with them, they are likely to go on 
home. If you are a better preacher than he 
is a teacher, you get them at ten-thirty, and 
he loses them at nine-thirty. But it is a safe 
wager that both of you can’t succeed with this 
same crew. 

If you are an organization specialist, you 
will be energizing the Busy Bees, Willing Work- 
ers, Knights of This-that-and-the-other, to the 
limit of your time and strength. Don’t forget, 
while you are flying about on your little organ- 
izational errands, that the main power of your 
ministry does not lie in the machinery with 
which you surround yourself. 

Speaking also of machinery, in another con- 
notation, we must beware of placing too much 
reliance upon office fussiness. You and I be- 
long to a profession that claims few tools for 
its proper performance. How I have envied 
the dentist the glittering and awesome trinkets 
of his trade! With what covetousness have I 
watched the doctor get out his blood-pressure 
thing (I fear it must have some other name 


g2 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


than that among medical men)—his_high- 
frequency machine, his cathode ray, his stetho- 
scope, his various nickel-plated weapons! How 
I have wished, when entering a house to make 
a rather difficult call, that I might have at 
least the equivalent of a clinical thermometer 
to thrust under somebody’s tongue, if for no 
better reason than that it would guarantee me 
a two minutes’ start on the conversation! But, 
alas, we are of a toolless profession. When it 
comes to such matters, the barber has it all 
over us. 

This leads me to say that the young preacher 
should get it firmly established in his conscious- 
ness that his business is not adesk job. Young 
Timothy Climber, in his first year at Waggles 
Crossing, sees visions and dreams dreams of a 
brighter day to come when, by pressing a but- 
ton on his desk, he may surnmon into his pres- 
ence an alert young woman with a stenographic 
notebook wherein to record his observations 
concerning the world in which he lives, and give 
utterance to the thoughts he would communi- 
cate to divers and sundry on his official sta- 
tionery. The while he waits for this glorified 
hour to come, he beguiles the tedium of delay 
by surrounding himself with all the office ma- 
chinery his modest income will provide. Fil- 
ing cabinets, card indices, reference systems, and 
cross-reference systems, devices for the cata- 
loguing of his one hundred and sixteen books, 


MACHINERY 93 


clipping drawers for the classified accommo- 
dation of his laborious scissors-work, letter- 
files, hourly ticklers, etc., to say nothing of 
parish maps, bristling with red, white, and blue 
headed pins to indicate the exact geographical 
location of the faithful, and complicated graphs 
showing his predecessor's administration to 
have been a season of drought compared to the 
jolly prosperity we are enjoying now. ‘There’s 
a funny thing about graphs. They are uni- 
formly optimistic, and record gains so large as 
to make the beholder gasp. No graph, ever 
made by a minister, registers a loss. 

You can get a nice little pocket record, for 
the use of ministers, in which the names of all 
your members may be written, with tabula- 
tions for the entry of calls made upon them. 
You will have a good time fussing with this 
little book. Go ahead and do it—once. You'll 
never be entirely satisfied until you have rigged 
one up for business. After you have experi- 
mented with it, you will content yourself, 
thereafter, with the card-index in which you 
keep the pastoral record of your constituency. 

If young Timothy Climber is not on his 
guard against the danger of being wound up 
and milled through the gears of his own ma- 
chinery, he will live to discover that it requires 
more time and ingenuity to fiddle with some 
of these office trinkets than their actual out- 
put justifies. To be sure, every young min- 


94 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


ister is to be pardoned for wanting to operate 
his institution ‘‘on a business basis.’’ Just a 
bit envious of the precision and mechanical 
efficiency which he observes in his visit to the 
president of the tomato-can factory, where 
pushed buttons invoke clerks, and the walls are 
adorned with cabinets bearing classified and 
assorted information relative to the production 
and the market, this youth of high aims must 
be forgiven if he endeavors to conduct his own 
affairs with something of the same methodical 
accuracy. He even finds it pleasant to adopt 
the tomato-can-business lingo, and tries to 
think of himself as a manufacturer. He is a 
manufacturer of ideals, he says. 

Now this is bad psychology. The minister 
is not a manufacturer, and the church is not a 
mill. This fact needs to be stated with em- 
phasis, to-day. Many persons, completely car- 
ried away with the modern lust for the pragma- 
tization of everything in the heavens above and 
the earth beneath, seem contented with the 
church’s work in direct proportion to its ability 
to make a spectacular show of beehive activity. 
They are discouraged and exasperated if the 
church building is not in use seven days of the 
week, preferably working three shifts per day. 
It pains them to see the place ever closed up 
for an hour. To them, this is a heavy economic 
loss and waste. Huge property—they say— 
representing money into six figures, perhaps, 


\ 


MACHINERY 95 


standing there, silent and useless, for so long 
as a whole day. It worries them. The thing 
should be working, working, working! There 
should be a high column of black smoke belch- 
ing from its chimney. People should be rush- 
ing about, inside, going through rapid motions, 
and getting many things done! We will do 
well to recover from this modern obsession that 
the church is a factory. We must drop this 
feverish, opportunistic notion that the church, 
as an institution, must perform its errand in 
the world, and render a report, by next Satur- 
day! We must persuade ourselves that amid 
all this hurry and worry and rush and scram- 
ble, for money, property, and pleasure, in 
which most of our generation have been en- 
gaged until their nerves are ragged and their 
minds distraught, it is of distinct advantage 
that there shall be at least one institution left, 
in this distracted world, which stands, digni- 
fiedly and serenely, for a great, eternal fact! 
Again, Timothy sometimes likes to think of 
himself as a merchant—a salesman. He talks 
of “selling”? a new idea to the congregation, or 
to the Board of Trustees. Time will cure him 
of this habit. But if he would spare himself 
the discomfort of arriving at this state of mind, 
and going through it, and recovering from it, 
he will do well to avoid it altogether. Com- 
merce, these days, is not a very beautiful enter- 
prise. Many men who are in the grip of its 


96 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


ugliest problems, deeply appreciate an oppor- 
tunity to forget about it, for an hour. Let the 
minister remember that he is not a merchant, 
and that his church is not a market. The stock 
phrases of commerce, adroitly filched from the 
lexicon of business, and woven into the proph- 
et’s conversation, add nothing to his ability in 
calling men’s attention to the everlasting veri- 
ties which undergird the life abundant. 

This brings me to the point of saying that 
the successful minister, ardently as he may 
search for it and agonizingly as he may yearn 
for it, can never find a satisfactory mechanical 
substitute for close-up, hand-to-hand contacts 
with the individuals who comprise his parish. 
He will always be hoping, through the days of 
his novitiate, to find some ingenious desk 
accessory which will help solve this problem. 
To hunt for this invaluable article is a quest 
as unrewarding as the motorist’s search for the 
fabled city of Detour, toward which he is di- 
rected, from time to time, but in which he 
never arrives. Timothy may write or type his 
parishioners’ names, addresses, hobbies, aver- 
sions, specialties, talents, weaknesses; and the 
names of their children unto the third and fourth 
generation, upon five-by-three red cards, and 
copy them upon six-by-four blue cards, and 
draw maps of their places of residence, in rela- 
tion to one another, so geometrically correct 
that they might be the envy of the Coast Sur- 


MACHINERY 97 


vey—but unless he puts on his hat, and goes to 
see them, it profiteth him nothing! 

He can bulletinize them and circularize them 
to his heart’s content, and to the utter despair 
of the Finance Committee—but it will be as 
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal if he makes 
no effort to become acquainted with them. 

I, too, Timothy, have pooh-poohed the alleged 
necessity of ringing door-bells, afternoons, to 
inquire of people how they did, when the aroma 
of burning beans or scorching biscuits plainly 
certified that the visit was no less distressing to 
the caller than to the callee. Ourself when 
young did scorn a task enjoining a six-foot man 
to go about wasting his own and other people’s 
time in such a manner. I think I have even 
gone to the length of saying it in print. 

Any little group of preachers, in the privacy 
of a Monday-morning chat, will vote unani- 
mously that the prophet Elisha, who probably 
first introduced the custom of parish visitation, 
bequeathed to his professional posterity a leg- 
acy of doubtful value. They call down anathe- 
mas upon the old fellow’s bald head, and de- 
clare that pastoral calling is an unuseful drudg- 
ery. But, that afternoon, all but the doomed 
will turn out and demonstrate their willingness 
to be legatees of the bequest. 

We are to have several chats, together, in 
this book, concerning this feature of our busi- 
ness. And before we settle down to the task 


98 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of inspecting the details of it, perhaps a few 
general remarks are in order on the broad sub- 
ject of the pastoral attitude. Maybe some 
of this talk belonged in Chapter I, where we 
were thinking about our vocation as a profes- 
sion. If so, no matter. You belong to what 
might be called “‘an unprofessional profession,” 
by which I mean that the more “ professional”’ 
you are in your manner, as you pursue your 
daily activities, the less success you will record. 
Some vocations affect a uniform. ‘This saves 
the persons engaged in such employment from 
the necessity of making themselves otherwise 
differentiated from the general public. The 
policeman doesn’t have to swagger about with 
a menacing, bulldog expression on his face, 
to let the public know that he is in the business 
of keeping order. The doctor has his little 
bag o’ tricks by which one inevitably knows 
him as a doctor. Probably most of the younger 
set of preachers, who may read these words, 
are not in uniform. I do not wish to be under- 
stood as holding the conventional ministerial 
garb in contempt. Indeed, there are many 
occasions when its usefulness so heavily out- 
weighs its disadvantages that it is perhaps a 
toss-up whether it is better for the minister to 
button his waistcoat in front or behind. Per- 
sonally, having tried it both ways, I am dis- 
posed to believe that if a minister does not 
happen to belong to a denomination which 


MACHINERY 99 


strongly recommends a clerical garb, his con- 
tacts with the public are more readily arrived 
at in the garments of the private citizen. The 
garb practically insures one against many petty 
annoyances. One does not hear so much pro- 
fanity and rough talk. A gentle ‘“‘Shush!” an- 
nounces his arrival in the barber-shop, and re- 
quires the passing of certain cabalistic signs 
from one functionary to another when he drives 
into the public garage. ‘There are some advan- 
tages in this, provided the uniformed clergyman 
does not run into situations where an insolent 
chap, of microcosmic mind and macrocosmic 
gall, wilfully plans his remarks to embarrass the 
man with the sacred label. All things consid- 
ered, I’ll wear a necktie. 

In default of distinguishing marks to set 
forth their vocation, many ministers either con- 
sciously or unconsciously contract funny little 
habits of posture, accent, and carriage, obvi- 
ously to indicate their line of business. Now if 
you have made up your mind that you are in- 
different to your future success in the ministry; 
that you are entirely willing to be doing a grade 
of service not quite so exacting as that which 
you are potentially capable of—go to it, with 
all your ingenuity, and become just as afvecend 
and artificial as you wish, in your “‘ministerial”’ 
manner. If, however, you are ambitious to 
make something of yourself, in the ministry, and 
come at length into a position worthy of your 


100 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


latent ability, deal very severely with the first 
signs of a budding “ministerial” air. Watch 
yourself for queer little tricks of speech. Be 
on the alert to detect and squelch mannerisms. 
Above all, don’t try to imitate some other man 
of your profession whom you hold in high re- 
gard! If ever your own personality is to have 
its chance, see that it is kept free of that bond- 
age. Many a man is a mere mosaic composed 
of scraps and fragments copied from the per- 
sonalities of others. 

Some ministers may be easily identified as 
such by the fact that when they stop to speak 
to any one on the street, everybody passing by 
notes the oratorical inflection and wealth of 
gesture accompanying the great man’s conver- 
sation. This type of minister always speaks 
“in public.” He cannot even say “Good morn- 
ing!” to you, in a crowded elevator, but every- 
body in the car cranes his neck to gaze upon the 
brother whose life-work is as thoroughly adver- 
tised as if he were a sandwich-man with his 
ecclesiastical pedigree on one board and the 
picture of his church on the other. 

Just on the eve of falling into such disgusting 
habits, my young friend, take careful thought 
for the future. Put it down as a rule that the 
men of our profession who have contributed 
most mightily to the cause in which we are all 
concerned, kept themselves as “unprofessional” 
as possible. Don’t—as you love your life— 


MACHINERY IOI 


affect any tricks which will make you conspicu- 
ous. When you distinguish yourself, achieve 
that end through the fineness of your service, 
rather than through the eccentricities of your 
manner. 

A very commendable modesty and shyness, 
manifesting itself in self-consciousness, is likely 
to break out on you, like a rash, during your 
early experience as a public speaker. The fact 
that you are a youth, and your fear that people 
may be disinclined to listen respectfully and 
seriously to you, on that account, may put you 
into the habit of speaking, in public—and, pres- 
ently, in private, too—with a different inflec- 
tion, a different tone, than is yours by nature. 
Such habits are very easily formed, and they 
are hard to break. Indeed, they are practically 
impossible to break, once you have introduced 
yourself to the public in that manner. You 
can’t very easily change your technic, after you 
have established it. I have heard preachers 
talk whose native state or country the most 
expert philologist could not have guessed. In- 
dubitably there was a pronounced accent there, 
but exactly what it was—New England, Ken- 
tucky, Canadian, Welsh, Texas, or N’ Yawk— 
might have bafled Sherlock Holmes. After you 
have listened to this sort of a fellow for a little 
while, you may conclude that this is Missouri, 
with a summer at Cambridge. 

I have known young preachers—and old ones, 


102 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


too—who seemed to be inordinately vain of a 
tremendous pile of unbarbered hair, though this 
observation may only be the ranting of a de- 
praved jealousy in me who have been defended, 
by nature, against making such displays. Be 
careful you do not fall into the habit of shaking 
hands in a manner which implies a conferment 
of grace. You will do a great deal of hand- 
shaking, in the course of your life. Don’t con- 
tract some trick here. Don’t get into the habit 
of patting twelve-year-old boys on the head. 
Don’t paw over people! Don’t be so demon- 
strative with your affection, when you meet a 
man whose friendship you wish to elicit, that 
he is tempted to shout: “‘Down, Fido!” 

The fact that you are more or less under ob- 
servation, all the time, by virtue of your pe- 
culiar position, will make you extremely con- 
scious of yourself until you become accustomed 
to the fact that you are living in a glass house. 
Of course the only sure cure for self-conscious- 
ness is an active and constant interest in other 
people. If you become sincerely concerned 
about them, you will forget about yourself. 

So much has been said about the irksomeness 
of pastoral calling, the refined idiocy of the cus- 
tom, the terrific burden it lays upon the shoul- 
ders of the minister, that there may be room for 
some remarks on the other side of the case. I 
maintain that this function of the minister may 
not only be relieved of its dulness, but made 


MACHINERY 103 


one of the chief sources of his happiness, if ap- 
proached in the proper mood, and conducted 
according to certain fixed regulations, herein- 
after to be set forth. 

Let the weary parson, who has always be- 
lieved that his pastoral ministrations were in- 
tended to be of benefit to his parish, divest 
himself of this idea altogether, and decide that 
when he goes out to make a call, he is going 
primarily to get something. For example: as 
he sets out to visit Auntie Grimes, who, because 
she is half-blind and bedridden, cannot gain 
much impression of the world outside, let him 
seek her in the capacity of beneficiary, rather 
than benefactor, eager to learn the latest de- 
ductions distilled in her spiritual laboratory. 
While he rushes about, attending committee 
meetings and conference lunches, distracted 
with innumerable trifling details—ninety-seven 
per cent of which come to nothing—this fine old 
soul has been experiencing an enforced monasti- 
cism, and has become a mystic. Here, for the 
asking, he may have, in thirty minutes, that 
which he has neither the time nor the patience 
to learn about the ways of God in a human soul 
—provided he goes for it as a humble seeker, 
rather than a noisy, puffy, back-slapping, hand- 
shaking professional pastor who rushes in, for 
a moment, to chuck Auntie under the chin and 
tell her she is ever so much better and looks like 
a rosy-faced high-school girl. Much as Auntie 


104 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


may appear to be appreciative of the fatuous 
compliment, and however cordial may be her 
expressions of delight over the fact that this 
great man had paused, in his flight, long enough 
to shout a few tempestuous nothings at her, 
she could give this fellow something that would 
add cubits to his spiritual stature if he had the 
wisdom and patience to seek her counsel, can- 
didly admitting her to be his superior in mat- 
ters of religious contemplation—which he prob- 
ably could do without committing an outrage 
upon the truth. 

When he goes into a house of mourning, it 
may be hoped that he carries some message of 
helpfulness; but if he enters there in the attitude 
of a suppliant, eager to learn what spiritual re- 
sources are vouchsafed the bereaved in an hour 
of grave emergency, and frankly lets it be 
known that he is there rather to get than to 
give, he will descend from that place much 
more of a prophet than when he arrived. It 
goes without saying that the grieving soul, ap- 
proached in this manner, feels the necessity of 
summoning all the spiritual energy he possesses, 
to meet the demands laid upon him by his 
minister, who comes questing, rather than be- 
stowing, that which makes humanity, in its 
gravest hours, rise to godlike proportions. 

Every call, upon a parishioner, should have 
_a definite errand affixed thereunto. You can 
elicit a promise from the lady that she will call, 


MACHINERY 105 


this week yet, upon the new people who moved 
recently into the next block. She has promised | 
to report to you the result of that call. The 
pastor is to go about distributing responsibili- 
ties and commissions among the members of 
his congregation. Never is he to leave the im- 
pression behind him, as he departs, that he 
had come in the attitude of the policeman who 
rings headquarters, every half-hour, just to 
certify that he is still on the job, and earning 
his pay for walking the streets. 

No office machinery will take care of this 
problem. Neither will any kind of auxiliary 
organization serve as a substitute. If the 
young minister thinks the time will ever come 
when he can handle all of his pastoral duties 
from his desk, in the church study, he is labor- 
ing under a delusion. True, the business of 
exercising pastoral care over a congregation 
numbering a thousand is an entirely different 
proposition than attending to the needs and 
wants of a church composed of one hundred 
and eighty-five; but if he expects, some day, 
to deal adequately with this larger task, his 
preparation for it will be made through the 
fidelity and resourcefulness with which he 
solves the problem now at hand. 


CHAPTER V 
VISITING THE SICK 


be informed of every case, in his parish, 

where his pastoral attention might be wel- 
come. After he has done his best to keep him- 
self aware of all the situations in which he is 
expected to manifest an interest, he will find 
that much of his pastoral duty is left undone 
for the very good reason that he has not heard 
of these cases in time to be of service. 

Frequently it happens that his pastoral obli- 
gations will be quite heavy, at certain seasons; 
and it is with difficulty that he gives adequate 
attention to them all. In times when his sched- 
ule is crowded, he may be forced to leave some 
things undone. Whatever he proposes to slight, 
on such occasions, it must not be his visitation 
of the sick. 

Almost any physical ailment involves a men- 
tal condition in which the patient is disposed 
to overrate his importance to himself and his 
friends. He has very little to think about be- 
sides himself, and he becomes extremely sensi- 
tive to any real or imagined indifference to his 
sorry plight as manifested on the part of his 
friends. Among the attentions which he con- 

106 


LT is beyond hope that the minister should 


VISITING THE SICK 107 


siders his rightful due, on this occasion, is a call 
from his minister. Even if he has been most 
casual in his attitude toward the church, and 
neglectful of his religious obligations, he thinks 
the church should show some concern about 
his case, now that he has met an emergency. 
He not only welcomes a call from the minister; 
but, if it is not forthcoming promptly, he is dis- 
appointed. Consequently, the longer you post- 
pone your visit to him, the harder it will be to 
do him a service when you arrive there. 

And if it should happen that, having been 
informed on Sunday of the illness of this brother 
—and he has been told that you are in posses- 
sion of that fact—your other duties should de- 
tain you from seeing him until Friday afternoon, 
you may find him somewhat disposed to be 
glum, a mood his household may share with 
him. You may tell him of the large number 
of people, at this season, who require attention 
because of illness. This makes him part of an 
invalided fraternity, and he feels less lonely. 
You knew he was sick, and wanted to see him; 
but knew, also, that he had enough understand- 
ing of your multiplicity of duties to wait, pa- 
tiently, until you found time to come to him. 
Whatever explanation you have to offer, for 
your delay, let it be but one. A single alibi is 
all you are permitted. To account for your 
tardiness on the ground of a heavy programme, 
your own indisposition, house guests who re- 


108 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


quired attention, and a half-dozen other ex- 
cuses, leads to his suspicion that you know your- . 
self to be guilty of slighting him. Sick people 
have very active imaginations. 

Every parish contains a small per cent of 
aged and infirm who need pastoral attention. 
Not only do they need it now, but they are 
going to need it so long as you both shall live.¢ 
The young minister is informed, early in his 
residence in the new pastorate, that Grandma 
Brown would be delighted to see him. As a 
charter member of the congregation, Grandma 
has received much attention from the ministers, 
which she appreciates and well deserves. She 
is eighty, rheumatic, and lonely. She has been 
a long time ill, and has become adjusted to the 
fact that she is a permanent “shut-in.” ‘This, 
then, will be one of the earliest calls the new 
minister makes. His pastoral duties, at that 
time, will be limited by the fact of his slender 
knowledge of his field. Later, he will have his 
hands full. For the time, he is not so busy. 
So, he goes to see Grandma Brown; and he will 
be so cordially welcomed, and his recollection 
of his visit will be so pleasant, that, next week, 
he decides to repeat the experience—both for 
Grandma’s sake and his own. Again he has 
such a good time that he resolves to be a fre- 
quent caller. For a month, he sees Grandma, 
punctually, every Monday afternoon. She re- 
marks, appreciatively, about his ‘‘weekly en- 


VISITING THE SICK 109 


gagement” with her. This is their little joke. 
Grandma hasn’t received so much attention for 
a long time; and, because her joys and expecta- 
tions of life are limited, she counts on this 
pleasure and comments upon it to the neighbors. 

Soon, parish duties multiply. Whereas Grand- 
ma Brown was one of a very small group of peo- 
ple requiring ministerial attention, now Grand- 
ma belongs to an increasing host. The new 
minister permits two weeks to slip by with- 
out seeing Grandma. She has confidently ex- 
pected him; has called for her best lace cap; 
has thought up a lot of things she wants to tell 
him and ask him—and he has failed her. The 
time comes when a whole month passes in 
which she sees nothing of him. She wonders 
whether he has found her less interesting than 
he thought at first; or, has she said something 
to wound him? Not having much else to think 
about, as she sits all day long in her rocking- 
chair, this problem may cause her a great deal 
of anxiety. There is just a bit of humiliation 
added thereunto, as she remembers how much 
happiness she had experienced in telling her 
neighbors of the frequent attention the new 
minister was bestowing upon her. Are they 
smiling about it?) The moral of this episode is 
that you must be careful about setting yourself 
a regular task of periodical calling upon chronic 
invalids. Don’t give an exact periodicity to 
these visits, at first, unless you are prepared to 


110 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


see the enterprise through faithfully to the end; 
which may be a long contract. 

While we happen to be thinking about the 
aged invalid, it should be observed that nature 
usually compounds her own subtle anzsthesia 
to numb the normal dread of death. You, at 
twenty-seven, contemplate death with such dis- 
taste that you imagine everybody else must feel 
the same way about it. You fancy your best 
contribution can be made at the point of at- 
tempting to distract attention from the thought 
of this mysterious warder of the exit gates of 
life. You do well to remember that, at seventy- 
five, the mind has been prepared for a calm and 
not altogether unwelcome consideration of the 
next step. This does not mean that you are 
to introduce the topic; but if your elderly 
parishioner seems inclined to discuss it with 
you, don’t throw up both hands in horrified 
disavowal of his right to talk about such things. 
“Oh, my good friend, you mustn’t be thinking 
about that!’ you are prompted to say. 
“That will be a long time, yet!” Well, it may 
seem a long time yet from where you are; but 
the days of our age are threescore years and 
ten, according to an ancient adage; and, after 
that period has been spent, most people begin 
to be aware that they are not a very good risk, 
as the actuary would say. 

Aged people do not wish to hear so much 
about the busy, bustling events of active life. 


VISITING THE SICK III 


The report of these matters only isolates them, 
still further, from our mundane world, and con- 
firms their annoying belief that they are un- 
useful residents in a place wherein their lease 
has expired. They do not greatly care what 
happened at the last church supper. It is of 
little concern to them that there is a new con- 
crete walk in front of the parsonage, or that 
you have added a new stop to the organ. The 
fact that you exceeded your apportionment to 
missions, or failed of it, is of minor consequence. 

The elderly Deacon Stone, when you inquire 
how he does to-day, may inform you that he 
is not long for this world. Believing that he 
should be wooed from this dismal state of mind, 
you are apt to think that your best service to 
the deacon is in beguiling his attention from 
his gloomy mood. You fairly smother him with 
a running commentary on current events, po- 
litical movements, parish news, under the im- 
pression that you are rendering him a helpful 
courtesy. Quite to the contrary. If he wishes 
to talk to you about death, go to it with him, 
and talk as helpfully as you know how on this 
subject. He will, of course, know a great deal 
more about it than you do. He is nearer to it; 
more immediately concerned with it; heavily 
outranks you in experience and observation of 
it. That being the case, you have more to 
learn than teach in this interview; and your 
frank announcement that this is true will do 


112 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


much to clear the air for a conference in which 
both you and the deacon will be profited. The 
best talking you can do on the matter is by en- 
couraging him to give you his own deductions. 
Sit attentively, at this hour, and give yourself 
a chance to learn something. But, however 
you may pursue this conversation, be sure that 
you pursue it. Do not evade it. If Deacon 
Stone has remarked that he is making ready 
to die, that doesn’t mean that he wants to hear 
all about your trip to California. He wants 
you to hear about his projected trip to Glory. 
He is just as much interested in that journey 
as you are in the tour you hope to make to 
Europe, one of these days. 

In his early experience of pastoral calling, 
the young minister has an instinctive dread of 
Visiting, as a comparative stranger, in a home 
where some one is reported to be very ill. This 
feeling, on his part, is entirely commendable. 
For him to consider that situation in any other 
state of mind than this would mean that he 
has more brass than any young minister has a 
right to possess. But, whatever may be his 
reluctance to make such a call, he can assure 
himself, before he goes, that the members of 
the household will not regard him as an in- 
truder. He has business there. He is not 
going as a private individual, but in his official 
capacity as the minister of the church. 

Assuming that he is permitted to see the pa- 


VISITING THE SICK 113 


tient, he should remember that he is there pri- 
marily for that purpose—to see the patient. 
Two or three members of the family will accom- 
pany him into the room. They are “up and 
coming,” physically; much easier to talk to 
than the patient, whose natural resources are 
at low ebb. He finds his line of least resistance 
proposing that he converse with them, across 
the bed, concerning the invalid. But he is not 
there to conduct a clinic. His attention should 
be almost entirely restricted to the patient. 
Sick people, you will discover, especially if they 
are not well known to you, are not to be de- 
pended upon to indulge in much sprightly con- 
versation. Until experience has taught you 
how to manage a situation like this, keep a few 
general facts in mind, as follows: 

In the first place, the minister must never 
prescribe. He is not the doctor. He must not 
assume to know anything about the treatment 
or care of this or any other malady. If he has 
any business there, at all, it relates to the pa- 
tient’s soul. He has not come to treat the 
body; and the more he chatters about the pa- 
thology of this case, the less confidence the pa- 
tient will have in him as an expert in his own 
field. When the physician’s name is mentioned, 
if he can with good conscience confirm the wis- 
dom of their choice, he may deepen the patient’s 
confidence in the doctor by expressing his own 
confidence in the medical man. Since the value 


114. THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of medical treatment depends, to a very large 
extent, upon the patient’s absolute trust in his 
doctor, the minister’s testimony to the physi- 
cian’s reputed skill is worth something. 

If the case is very grave, the minister should 
not feel required to offer an unjustifiable hope 
of recovery by reciting what he believes to be 
similar cases which eventuated happily. It is 
to the minister’s advantage to stand well in 
the regard of the physicians of his town; and 
if he gains the reputation of “a prescriber,” or 
is known to talk glibly of therapeutic matters 
in every sick-room he visits, the doctors will 
consider him a poacher on their professional 

preserves. 

' Should the doctor arrive while you are mak- 
ing your call, courtesy and common sense en- 
join you to fens but you need not make such 
a hurried exit that the impression is left behind 
you your professional service is as nothing 
compared to his. To scramble out of a sick- 
room, under such circumstances, as if you were 
a mere neighbor, making a friendly call, is 
hardly fair to the cause you represent. 

The minister’s first business is to express his 
sympathy. In these days of professional nurses, 
the patient does not receive quite as much 
sympathy as in the old days when the mem- 
bers of the family took turns at the bedside. 
Doubtless this change is in the interest of prog- 
ress. Beyond all question, many a patient has 


VISITING THE SICK 115 


been fetched to an untimely grave by way of 
the well-iatended compliance with his demands 
on the part of an affectionate household whose 
love was larger than their judgment. To-day, 
the nurse holds forth in magisterial manner. 
She is not there to sympathize; but to carry out 
the doctor’s orders. Her job is not the most 
pleasant one in the whole wide world; but it 
has some compensations. One of these re- 
wards is the abject obedience to her wishes, and 
servile deference to her skill, manifested toward 
her by the anxious members of a family that 
believes a great deal hangs upon her service. 
Having imputed to her a professional responsi- 
bility possibly quite out of proportion to her 
actual capacity to exercise it, she is apt to go 
about her business with the calm dispassion of 
a cobbler half-soling a boot. Sometimes she is 
icily matter of fact in her attitude toward the 
patient. The members of the family under- 
stand that the nurse knows her business thor- 
oughly. They take their cues from her as to 
the best attitude to assume toward the object 
of their solicitude. The professional air of the 
nurse is often unwittingly imitated by the whole 
household. I have seen many cases where a 
curious constraint seemed to have laid hold 
upon the family. In the presence of the pro- 
fessional nurse—a stranger to them—they were 
shy and difident. They wanted to express their 
love and concern by little words and gestures 


116 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


and tokens of endearment; but always this 
stifdy starched professional was standing by, 
thermometer in hand, trying to possess her soul 
in patience until this affectionate nonsense had 
been enacted. 

I do not want to be misunderstood here as 
berating this profession. I have come into con- 
tact with large numbers of nurses whose fine- 
ness, every way considered, set them apart as 
superwomen, of whom the world is not worthy. 
But I have known, also, a considerable num- 
ber of the other sort who, when they entered this 
vocation, obviously robbed the useful profes- 
sion of dish-washing of a member in good and 
regular standing. 

If the nurse has paralyzed the family’s fac- 
ulties for demonstrating affection, you will 
quickly sense the situation. Correct it by your 
own attitude in their presence. Your friendly 
admonition to the patient that he must “mind 
the doctor,” and “‘obey the nurse,” is to no 
purpose here. The invalid has heard little else 
but that manner of talk until he is pretty well 
fed up on it. He rather hopes you have come 
in with a new line of conversation. If the nurse 
has been autocratic, he has come to understand, 
subconsciously, that she is the barrier between 
him and the little amenities his family might 
naturally bestow. In such a situation, you 
accord her but little deference. She has had 
enough of that—probably more than is good for 


VISITING THE SICK 117 


her. If you can manifest some honest-to-good- 
ness affection, here, your name will become 
immortal. It will be good for the family to 
see that the patient’s hand can be held for two 
minutes, and patted, maybe, without his suffer- 
ing a relapse. Let them understand, by your 
own attitude, that the nurse’s presence does not 
deter you from saying some of the things that 
are welling up in their own hearts, and foolishly 
repressed for fear she might think them maud- 
linly sentimental. 

Instead of saluting the nurse, as you enter 
the sick-room, with the doctor’s conventional 
airy remark, “Well, how’s your patient this 
morning !”—you do far better to dispose of 
her with a gracious nod, and approach the pa- 
tient at once, as if he had a right to be hailed 
with the second personal pronoun. He gets a 
good deal of attention that is phrased in the 
third person. When the doctor inquires about 
him of the nurse, the patient is in the third per- 
son. When the nurse replies, he is still third 
person. He has become a mere chattel. He 
is flat on his back, unable to refute the implica- 
tion that he is a lay figure. He has but little 
more to say about his case than if the occasion 
were an autopsy. The doctor thinks of him 
as “‘a typical pneumonia.” To the nurse, he 
is “‘a case.” ‘The family, as has been observed, 
humors the mood of these professionals, upon 
whose skill so much depends, and themselves 


118 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


fall to talking about the patient as they would 
of any other natural object in disrepair. You 
can remedy this by making the patient the 
centre of interest. 

Perhaps it is quite unnecessary to remark 
that the minister should not shake hands with 
sick people. Of course the patient will wish 
to doso. The minister is a hand-shaking func- 
tionary. Long custom demands that the in- 
valid exert whatever energy he possesses to ex- 
tend his right hand. You will have anticipated 
this. He knows he has it to go through, even 
if the business of shaking jars himterribly. But 
you will give him a pleasant surprise by ex- 
tending your left hand. He does not feel re- 
quired to shake your left hand. If you offer 
your right, he will try to shake it, probably to 
his discomfort. If you take his right hand in 
yours, and do not shake it, your greeting lacks 
something. So give him your left hand. He 
will not know why, and you need not tell him. 
He will be much better satisfied. 

An affectionate hand that is laid upon his 
arm or his forehead, or that smooths his pillow, 
is going to mean more to him than any phi- 
losophy of comfort and serenity. If you are 
visiting a sick child, the gift of a simple little 
puzzle or a book of pictures is greatly appreci- 
ated. You need have no reticence about call- 
ing to see a mother of a new baby. The fact 
that she has given birth to a child certainly re- 


VISITING THE SICK 11g 


flects no discredit upon her, nor is she any less 
entitled, on that account, to the attention of 
her minister. And while we happen to be on 
that subject, if her baby should die, aged six 
hours, you are to consider this as one of the 
most serious bereavements. Because of your 
inexperience of life’s strange problems, you may 
think that a misfortune like this is quickly for- 
gotten, and is of small importance. You will 
find it to be quite to the contrary. 

You can talk of spiritual matters, in the sick- 
room, without directing the patient’s attention 
to heaven. The kingdom is not restricted to 
“out yonder”; but is here, now, within you! 
The realm of the spirit is sufficiently broad to 
be talked about without invading the terra in- 
cognito whither our feet are tending. Unless 
the patient signifies his wish to discuss that 
matter, you do well to treat his mind as if he 
proposed to stay on here. 

Whether the minister is to pray with the pa- 
tient, or not, depends upon circumstances. If 
and when you do, make it as spontaneous as 
possible. If the prayer is addressed solely to 
God, it will be quite as effective if offered, later, 
in your own study. If, however, it is jointly 
addressed to God and the patient, both of these 
considerations must be kept in mind. I do not 
intend this to sound flippant. I am talking 
now about real facts; and I am trying to speak 
of them practically and honestly. 


120 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


I have known cases where the patient was al- 
ready sufficiently nervous about the outcome 
of his malady without having any more gravity 
imputed to it by the implication that he had 
now come to the point where the miraculous 
intervention of the divine is in order. If a 
prayer can be offered without unduly exciting 
the patient’s alarm for himself, the minister may 
make a definite contribution here. It is much 
better to say, “Shall we offer a prayer together 
—you and I—for courage and strength ?”’ than 
to suggest: ‘Would you like to have me say a 
prayer for you?’ If prayer is offered, convince 
the patient that he is responsible for it, wants 
it, and is helping to present it. The best prin- 
ciples of mental suggestion should be employed 
in the phrasing of this petition. To begin by 
informing Deity that “our brother is in deep 
affliction” is bad psychology. God knows a 
great deal more about the plight of our brother 
than we; and our brother is probably quite 
obsessed by the thought of his “‘deep afflic- 
tion.” Steer clear of suggestions which inhibit 
his freedom of movement in attempting to rise 
above his aches and pains long enough to solicit 
spiritual power. Keep close to the hope-and- 
promise phraseology. The use of certain built-in 
passages of scripture, which have been of mental 
aid for ages, stating with certitude the rightful 
expectation of the believer that all is well with 
him, is of more benefit than any home-made 


VISITING THE SICK 121 


comfort devised on the spot. Try to formulate 
your prayers so that when you are done, if you 
haven’t helped him any, he is at least no worse 
off in mind than he was before. 

It may come to pass that you will find your- 
self, some time, in the midst of a highly emo- 
tional, half-hysterical household, and some fran- 
tic member will beseech you to offer prayer. 
You will, of course, consent. There will be a 
general scurry to round up everybody in the 
house for this service. In the course of a mo- 
ment, you will be facing a very serious dilemma. 
If you begin your prayer under these conditions, 
almost anything you are likely to say will pro- 
duce an emotional storm. You must not take 
the risk of this. Beware of letting the situation 
get out of your control in this manner. After 
the family is assembled, you will do well to 
make them all a little talk calculated to calm 
their excitement and encourage them in their 
efforts to control their emotions. You can re- 
mind them that the fervent prayer of the right- 
eous availeth much, provided God is approached 
in faith. Prayer, to be effective, must pro- 
ceed from hearts sincerely believing in God’s 
willingness and ability to help. ‘‘We must all 
render our friend this service, then, by pre- 
senting our petition with calm courage and 
resolute confidence.” But don’t go down on \ 
your knees to pray while a general emotional 
stampede is on, or impending. If you do so, 


122 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


you will wish afterward that you had been 
more thoughtful and deliberate. 

Frequently, some member of the family fol- 
lows the minister down-stairs, and converses 
with him, en route, in low tones. The patient 
hears this half-audible conversation, and de- 
cides that his pastor is now learning the worst, 
which had been previously concealed from him. 
Whatever the conversation may be, at such a 
moment, the preacher’s contribution to it should 
be distinctly audible and unalarming. The 
patient may be disposed to forgive the doctor, 
and the nurse, and the family, for attempting 
to deceive him about his condition; but he likes 
to believe that the man of God is not in collu- 
sion with the rest of them in this disquieting 
intrigue. 

If you have any doubt about your programme 
of talk with the patient, before you have seen 
him, ascertain exactly what the situation is be- 
fore you enter his room. Sometimes the real 
nature of a disease has not been confided to 
the patient. There will be a fine chance for 
you here to make yourself about as popular as 
poison-ivy, if you make some disclosing remark 
to the invalid that lets the cat out of the bag. 
Very frequently, for example, a cerebral hemor- 
thage has been called by some other title than 
paralysis. ‘The numbness of the right hand and 
right foot, and the slight impairment of speech, 
has been accounted for on the ground of general 


VISITING THE SICK 123 


depletion of physical vitality which can be cor- 
rected presently through enforced rest and sim- 
ple hygienic treatment. Your optimistic re- 
mark to the patient, therefore, that he can 
reasonably expect recovery inasmuch as your 
own best-beloved Auntie was paralyzed, just 
like this, and got back into things, in a few 
weeks, will nominate you, in that household, 
for a conspicuous place in the gallery of dunder- 
heads. Find out, before you go into her room, 
whether the lady is really paralyzed, or is 
merely experiencing a strange neural condition 
which has suddenly dispossessed her of the use 
of one side of her body. If you have your own 
private ideas as to what ails her, you may store 
them alongside all your other private ideas—a 
department of your mental warehouse which 
will have to be enlarged, from time to time, to 
accommodate the business transacted there. 
The length of your call is governed by con- 
ditions. If you are in a home where death is 
momentarily expected, you had better stay. 
The doctor does not linger long: there is nothing 
he can do. The nurse is obviously at the end 
of her resources; and signifes by her manner 
that her job is over. Nor is there anything 
much that you can do, except stay. It will not 
be a good time fot you to remember another 
pressing engagement, much as you may wish 
to escape the experience of witnessing this 
heart-breaking scene. If you are required to 


124 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


remain until two o’clock in the morning, it is 
to be doubted if you can contrive a better use 
of your time. I look back upon a few such 
experiences, though terribly trying, as among 
the most useful hours of my ministry. 

An accident has occurred, let us say, to some 
member of your congregation. You know that 
the family will be dreadfully upset. The con- 
ditions there will be tragic, inthe extreme. You 
are timid about rushing there to offer your sym- 
pathy, and exercise the rights of your pastoral 
office. You would prefer waiting until to- 
morrow morning, when things may have calmed 
down a bit. But chey need you a great deal 
worse to-night than they may to-morrow. Go 
at once! The more tragic it is, the quicker you 
are to arrive! The more harrowing the situa- 
tion is, the longer you are to stay! The more 
anxious you are to escape, the more imperative 
it is that you remain on the job! This is im- 
portant! 

Hospitals have regular calling hours, usually 
from two to four in the afternoon. ‘The staff 
will like the minister better and welcome him 
more cordially at the time designated for callers. 
He may think his profession gives him the right 
to ignore this regulation, as indeed it does in 
all emergency cases. But the physician makes 
his hospital calls in the morning, and the nurses 
are occupied with post-operative dressings, 
linen changes, etc., and do not like to be dis- 


VISITING THE SICK 125 


turbed. Neither do they welcome visits at the 
meal hours of their patients. Observe the 
rules. Call in the afternoon. It is then that 
the patient is lonely, and eager for company. 

If you are calling upon a patient in an open 
ward, do not forget to extend a gracious word 
and a smile to the patients on adjacent beds. 
No formal introduction is necessary. Con- 
valescents, in a hospital ward, are all democrats. 
Their common cause constitutes a fraternity. 
They will not only welcome a greeting, and a 
cordial expression of good wishes, as you pass, 
but may consider you a very chilly parson if 
you fail of it. Your patient may be encour- 
aged to tell you something about his neighbors 
in the ward. Many contacts have been estab- 
lished, by this process, which resulted in last- 
ing ties. 

Every minister should be supplied with a 
quantity of inexpensive little testaments. In 
the course of a conversation with a sick man, 
you may find it pleasant and profitable to take 
out this little book, bound in brown leather, 
and read a few verses calculated to inspire cour- 
age and faith—the Pauline letters being choice 
hunting-ground for such advice; and when you 
are done, slip the book under his pillow. Have 
a little compact with him that he is to return 
it to you when he is up and going again. The 
prospect of that joyful day is so alluring he 
will make the promise without hesitation. This 


126 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


puts him into your hands, again, as a live, well 
man. Too frequently, after we have estab- 
lished a pleasant relationship with a patient, 
during his illness, we fail to conserve it when 
he has gone back to his usual programme. 

There is nothing the convalescent appreciates 
more than the loan of a book. So soon as he 
begins to come back to life, he exhibits consid- 
erable interest in the affairs of the world out- 
side. Books of travel and adventure, essays 
dealing with nature’s big out-of-doors, and 
stories of people who became supreme over ob- 
stacles, always find a ready market with the 
convalescent. 

Flowers are greatly appreciated by the sick. 
The expense may be materially reduced by hav- 
ing an arrangement with a certain florist to pro- 
vide you with a small potted plant, in season, 
at a nominal sum. Your cards are in the flor- 
ist’s possession. You have only to telephone 
him the address, and he knows what to do. 
Many churches also have a fund to be drawn 
upon for this purpose; and flowers are sent to 
the sick bearing the sympathy and friendly en- 
couragement of the church as an institution. 
Such little courtesies abundantly repay all the 
energy and expense involved. He is a wise 
minister who makes full use of the opportunity 
intrusted him to render valuable service to the 
sick. At no other time are they so ready to 
receive him, and give serious heed to the mes- 


VISITING THE SICK 127 


sage he bears. Likewise it may be said that 
while he may be pardoned many other failures, 
any suspicion of indifference on his part, at 
such times, is not easily forgiven or forgotten. 


CHAPTER VI 
EARTH TO EARTH 


()' all the things we do badly, the funeral 


is the worst. At the place where we 

should render our highest service, we 
are the weakest. Nowhere else than in the 
house of bereavement is so much expected of 
us; nowhere else are we so obviously at a loss 
to find adequate methods of meeting our op- 
portunity. 

In her capacity of counsellor to the souls of 
men, the church admonishes them, in fair 
weather, that death has lost its sting and the 
grave its victory; but when death has actually 
summoned a family to surround an ugly yellow 
gash in the cemetery’s greensward, the church 
too often meets them there with a shy and 
awkward diffidence, and mocks their grief with 
the sonorous recitation of cold formalities. 

In his brilliant essay on ‘‘ Death,’’ M. Maurice 
Maeterlinck remarks that a man “returning to 
us from another century would recognize noth- 
ing with which he had had to do except the 
figure of death.” This, declares the essayist, 
“he would find almost untouched, rough-drawn 
as it was by our fathers, thousands of years 
ago.” 

128 


EARTH TO EARTH 129 


This observation is debatable. In the course 
of my own lifetime I have witnessed a marked 
change in the attitude of most people in regard 
to losses sustained by the death of their loved 
ones. It may be that the general broadening 
of our knowledge concerning the physical laws 
operative in our world has given larger encour- 
agement to our belief that we are living in a 
universe from which there is no escape. Surely, 
we may speak with more confidence than ever 
before concerning the reality of those things 
which “eye hath not seen,” now that wireless 
communication and the Roentgen ray are so 
common as to be taken for granted by the gen- 
eral public. If modern science should ever be 
disposed to attempt a defense of itself against 
the charge that it has proved to be subversive 
of faith in religion, doubtless it will point to the 
fact that its contribution to our thinking about 
the power and persistence of the unseen heavily 
outweighs the discomforts it has brought to 
the adherents of an unalterable orthodoxy. 

But, whatever may be presumed to account 
for the fact that the majority of our people, 
to-day, face bereavement with more apparent 
understanding and control than so recently as 
three decades ago, it is a fact. I can distinctly 
remember when a violent emotional storm, at a 
funeral, was not the exception, but the rule. 
Only rarely does one witness such painful scenes, 
at this hour. Perhaps the present method of 


130 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


conducting the last rites for the departed may 
account for this change. But it is to be doubted 
if the improvement is to be credited to our 
profession. If there is to be any praise, let 
the undertakers have it. 

Little by little, in the past few years, methods 
have been evolving toward a refinement of the 
funeral. Efforts have been made to soften 
some of its most cruel blows. When I was a 
lad, the funeral was practically a whole day’s 
work. ‘There was a brief service at the house; 
another, not so brief, at the church; a thoroughly 
heart-breaking service in the cemetery; con- 
cluding with the return of a large crowd of rela- 
tives, friends, and neighbors, to the bereaved 
home, “‘for refreshments.” I used to drive the 
horse for my father, on many of these trips 
through the country; and there were stamped 
upon my plastic boy-mind certain harrowing 
sights and sounds which haunt me yet. 

The science of embalming was in its infancy. 
The kindly disguises which now palliate, some- 
what, the physical ravages of death, were then 
unknown. ‘The little devices of recent days, 
invented to protect the bereaved from the 
ruder shocks incident to interment, were yet 
to come. Everybody saw it through, in all 
its naked terror; and custom decreed that no 
one might turn from it until the last lump of 
raw dirt had been patted into place by the 
deft shovels of the neighbors. Not much 


EARTH TO EARTH 131 


wonder is it that the whole horrible enterprise 
was customarily attended by such demonstra- 
tions of the complete breakdown of all emo- 
tional discipline that I dread to recall it even 
now when nearly all the other pictures, of the 
same date, in my mental gallery, have faded 
into an indistinguishable blur. 

Gradually, the public has been educated, by 
the undertakers, to think less and less about 
the dirt part of it. Everything that genius and 
sympathy might do to make mortality less hide- 
ous has been done. But—let me repeat—the 
undertakers deserve all the credit. We minis- 
ters have contributed very little toward the im- 
provement. Westill gloomily recite, as of yore: 
“Man that is born of woman is of few. days— 
full of trouble—cometh forth as a flower—cut 
down. Earth to earth—ashes to ashes—dust 
to dust.” Still pounding away on the old 
“dirt concept”’; still reciting that meaningless 
remark, “‘ Though after my skin worms destroy 
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” —a 
statement we take back, however, when we 
call attention to Paul’s declaration, ‘‘ Flesh and 
blood do not inherit the kingdom”—so there is 
no actual harm done. The Pauline citation 
neutralizes the remark of Job, and leaves every- 
thing very much as it was before; but oh, how 
. futile! 

As I write these words, I have before me a 
conventional funeral ritual. They are all very 


132 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


much alike. Any criticism one might express 
in reference to this one may be equally predi- 
cated of all the others. I wonder how much 
good we think we are doing when we read, in 
a house of mourning: ‘‘ When thou with rebukes 
dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beauty 
to consume away, like as it were a moth fretting 
agarment.” Exactly what—if anything—does 
that mean? Assuming that it once had some 
significance, what does it mean to-day, near the 
close of the first quarter of the twentieth cen- 
tury? Is it consonant with modern thought? 
And if so, is it in any way relevant to the matter 
at issue? 

“Every man is therefore vanity,” pursues 
the liturgy. Well, supposing that to be true— 
a very heavy and depressing charge against a 
race that thinks it has been redeemed; an in- 
dictment drawn up by a jaded old roué whose 
career quite disqualified him as a counsellor to | 
normal people—supposing it to be true, which 
it isn’t, what of it? Does this ease the pain, 
in the slightest degree? 

“Thou turnest man to destruction,” con- 
tinues the liturgy. Personally, I do not believe 
it; but assuming, for sake of argument, that it 
is a fact, what is the good of saying it to a little 
group of weeping people who are all bundled 
up for their drive to the cemetery, where they 
expect to bury the remains of their Harry, or 
Grace, or mother, or daddy? ‘“‘For we con- 


EARTH TO EARTH 133 


sume away in thy displeasure, and are afraid 
at thy wrathful indignation.” A fine piece of 
consolation—that. 

Obviously it is high time we gave ourselves 
to some serious thinking about the ways and 
means whereby we may offer a larger contri- 
bution to the distressed. Surely, it is not for 
lack of consolatory scripture that we have 
failed to do better in our ministry to the be- 
reaved. Long since, I have left off reading the 
gloomy requial verses which postulate the se- 
verity of The Absolute, and explain death as 
an act of judgment. 

Experience has persuaded me that the most 
satisfactory funeral service, in these days when 
the chief request is a plea for brevity and sim- 
plicity, is a synthetic scripture reading com- 
piled from the Twenty-third Psalm, selected 
verses from the fourteenth chapter of St. John, 
and a few sentences from the fifteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians, followed by a prayer, and 
a ten-minute address on the general theme of 
the Life Everlasting. Unless the decedent is a 
person in public position, I rarely refer to his 
personal characteristics, except in the most gen- 
eral way. 

As the officiating minister, at a funeral ser- 
vice, you may safely assume: first, that the per- 
sons in attendance know as much as yourself 
about the virtues of the departed— —perhaps a 
great deal more. Indeed, in many cases it 


134 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


would be but little short of an impertinence for 
you, a comparative stranger, to indulge in 
eulogy in the presence of a group wherein you 
are the least informed, of all of them, concern- 
ing the tender matters of which you speak. 
You may assume, in the second place, that the 
family is thoroughly aware of the loss that has 
been sustained, and requires no advice from 
you serving to deepen that conviction. You 
are there to offer consolation. 

After experimenting with a variety of pro- 
grammes, I have found that the following ideas 
seem to afford the most comfort. I am pass- 
ing them along to you, in a very brief and 
sketchy outline. I am in Maeterlinck’s debt 
for the thought that if an unborn child could 
reason, he might contemplate, with horror and 
alarm, the fact that he was presently to be 
driven forth from the maternal warmth and 
security into a world of illness, accident, care, 
and labor; but, having made adventure in that 
new world, on no account could he tolerate the 
thought of a return to his earlier state of living. 
But, now, with even more apprehension, he 
attempts to avert his eyes from the fact that 
he is presently to be transferred into still an- 
other mode of life—probably as much less lim- 
ited as his present state of existence is less 
limited than his prenatal life. 

The truth that the idea of survival is a uni- 
versal belief, belonging to all ages, all countries 


EARTH TO EARTH 135 


—confessed with equal fervor and confidence 
by savage and sage—is a consoling thought. 
Doctor Fosdick has offered some help in his 
statement: “‘ Were we to live by the appearances 
of things, we should spend our lives in igno- 
rance of the most important facts in our world.” 
To our senses, it seems that our friends are 
gone. But “the best knowledge we have is ar- 
rived at through the utter repudiation of cer- 
tain testimony based upon appearances. Our 
earth appears to be flat; but it is round. At 
noon, the stars appear to have left the sky; 
but they are all there.” We need only be 
plunged into the depths of an enveloping dark- 
ness, to discover how brightly the stars are 
shining. ‘All human knowledge has been won 
through a criticism of our senses, by going back 
of the way things look to the way things are. 
Physical sight reports that a man grows smaller 
as he recedes into the distance; insight says that 
he does not. Sight says that death destroys,” 
leaving nothing but an impassive semblance of 
one’s friend. “Insight declares that the life is 
more superior to the body than the body is 
superior to its raiment.” 

Some time, when you have a little child to 
lay away, read Leigh Hunt’s essay on “The 
Death of Little Children” before you prepare 
your address. If you are called upon to speak 
at the funeral of one suddenly taken, in the 
midst of an active career, it will be helpful to 


136 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


remind the friends of the departed that there 
are two aspects to immortality—the immortal- 
ity of the soul Over There, and the persistence 
of his influence here. If they are disposed to 
be affectionately rebellious over the fact of his 
obviously unfinished work, it is quite within 
their power to give him added years, here, by 
redoubling their own interest and energy in 
promoting the causes to which he had given 
himself with such zeal. 

Before you have spent a decade in the min- 
istry, you will have discovered that bewil- 
dered people, passing through the Valley of the 
Shadow, are sometimes moved to make strange 
requests relative to the conduct of a funeral 
service in theirhome. You should comply with 
these requests, in so far as you are able, even 
though they involve curious procedure which 
you would never have thought of yourself. 
Remember that at such times people’s minds 
are badly upset. Perhaps you have never 
passed through a serious bereavement. If not, 
you cannot be expected to understand; but you 
may take their word for it who have suffered— 
this is a time when nobody is exactly normal. 

You will be asked to read verses, written for 
the occasion by Aunt Emma. The poem may 
be longer than deep; no two lines of it may be 
of the same school of poetic architecture; the 
sentiment may be even more strange than the 
garments wherewith it is clothed. But you 


EARTH TO EARTH 137 


will read the poem by Aunt Emma. Tinker it 
up, and read it as impressively as possible. 
However crude it may sound to you, it may be 
the most satisfying part of the service, because 
Aunt Emma wrote it. Your pride may suffer, 
somewhat, for you have been instructed not to 
divulge the secret of its origin. Many people 
there will think it your own composition, and 
wonder what could possibly have led you to 
do it. On no other occasion, in the pursuance 
of his vocation, is a minister more likely to be 
confronted with the necessity of being “‘a fool 
for Christ’s sake.” 

Not infrequently, extended biographical mat- 
ter will be provided for you to read at the ser- 
vice. Read anything they think they want 
read. I once spent a full twenty minutes read- 
ing newspaper clippings concerning a man who, 
as Prosecuting Attorney, had sent more people 
to jail than any other person who had ever oc- 
cupied that position in his county. It was the 
highest tribute that could be paid to his efhi- 
ciency as a public servant, and they wanted it 
read. I read it. Had I been left to my own 
devices, I should have been reluctant to direct 
him to the throne of mercy with these creden- 
tials; but it was not mine to reason why. 

When a death is reported to the minister, he 
should go to the home at his earliest oppor- 
tunity. Even if the message comes to him 
with all the facts he needs to know, he must go 


138 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


to the house, anyway. If the deceased is a 
member of another church than his, but cer- 
tain members of the household are of his con- 
gregation, he should attend the funeral, if pos- 
sible, and be quite as attentive, both before 
and after the event, as if he had been asked 
to conduct the service. 

Occasionally, a death will occur in some fam- 
ily of your congregation whose members have 
been intimately attached to your predecessor. 
Conversation will develop the fact that they 
wish this minister might be present. Here is a 
chance for you to show everybody in your par- 
ish what sort you are. Many a sprightly scrap 
has been staged, and many hard feelings en- 
gendered, by the return of a prophet to his 
erstwhile parish for the purpose of offering con- 
solation to his old friends. The preacher who 
is so jealous of his “professional rights” that 
he attempts to enforce them at an hour when 
people aren’t thinking clearly, or pausing to re- 
flect upon how anybody else might feel about 
this, except themselves, should be in some line 
of endeavor less exacting of a Christian char- 
acter. 

Consent, cheerfully, to this arrangement. At 
the first hint of this desire, on the part of the 
family, take the initiative in planning for its 
execution. Wire the other minister your own 
hope that he will come. Meet him at the train. 
Extend him every courtesy. If, at the last 


EARTH TO EARTH 139 


minute, you are asked to take some minor part 
in the service, do whatever is requested of you. 
The minister who lacks the magnitude of mind 
to go through an occasional experience like this 
without showing himself aggrieved has no 
right to belong to our profession. 

Customarily the funeral is held at the family 
residence. In my opinion, the proper place for it 
is in the church—a church whose appointments 
permit the family to have privacy from the 
mere business acquaintances and neighbors by 
being seated in a little adjoining room where 
they may hear and see unobserved. ‘The ideal 
service should be a triumphant expression of 
faith. A trained and competent choir should 
be on duty, perhaps opening the service with 
a stirring rendition of Gounod’s “‘Unfold, Ye 
Portals.”” We might contrive to do some good 
if we had people educated to this idea. But 
that, I dare say, is beyond hope. The funeral 
is held at the house. You will arrive five min- 
utes before the service. ‘There is little you can 
do with the remaining time, except be conscious 
of the fact that you are more or less in the way 
of the arriving friends, who must walk over 
you as you sit where a chair has been placed 
for you. This is a good time to slip up-stairs 
and have a quiet word with these sorry people. 
Perhaps you will wish to offer a brief prayer 
with them, in the intimacy of this family circle. 
Maybe there will be no opportunity for that. 


140 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


If not, a hand-clasp; an affectionate pat on the 
shoulder; a word inspiring them to courage— 
you may decide, later, that you did more for 
them, in that moment, than through the ser- 
vice you read at the foot of the stairs. 

It is no longer considered imperative that 
the minister walk bareheaded, on a winter day, 
from the door of the house to the door of the 
hearse, or from the hearse to the grave. Pneu- 
monia is a very high price to pay for the con- 
ventional tribute of respect involved in that 
exposure. I shall not do my late friend’s mem- 
ory the discredit of thinking that he would be 
pleased over my taking such a risk. When the 
minister has the good judgment to leave his 
hat on, the pall-bearers and others follow his 
example. 

The undertaker is always anxious to get 
everybody away from the grave at the earliest 
possible moment, after the committal service; 
and this is entirely right. The minister can 
easily manage, however, to walk back to the 
coach with the next of kin, and show his com- 
radeship in this most trying moment of all. 
For him to turn directly from the grave, after 
the benediction, and go his way to his car, 
without a word, seems a bit chilly and per- 
functory. 

Not much time should elapse after the funeral 
until the minister calls on the family. Fre- 
quently I have gone there directly from the 


EARTH TO EARTH I4I 


cemetery, on occasions when some one in the 
household seemed close to the breaking-point. 
When you make your post-funeral call, you may 
offer some helpful counsel on the subject of 
their new obligations; the importance of rapidly 
reconstructing the life of the house to meet the 
changed conditions; the danger of brooding in 
seclusion; and the inevitable disappointment of 
all who travel “the way to Endor.” Perhaps 
some well-meaning neighbor, who once tinkered 
with an ouija-board or attended a séance, has 
already stirred their curiosity concerning spiri- 
tualism. If she hasn’t yet, she will. You 
may safely act on the assumption that this is 
a good time to discourage any attempted com- 
munication with a world from which we are 
separated for the sake of our own peace of 
mind. You can assure them that if we knew 
of the life they now live, who have been trans- 
ported to celestial happiness, we might find our 
present tasks unendurable. A few timely words 
on this subject may divert their attention from 
a programme brimming with mental misery. 
Find time to keep very close to these people, 
for a while. Every time you are in their part 
of town, for a few weeks, drop in, if only for a 
moment. This not only helps the bereaved 
family; it helps the minister, also. He needs 
to know how other people behave under fire. 
Sometimes, when I see the magnificent way in 
which men and women rise to meet the blow, 


142 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


and the splendid manner in which they exer- 
cise their faith and courage, after they have had 
the dearest thing in life taken from them, it 
makes me proud to feel that I am a member of 
the same race to which they belong. It does 
no harm to tell them so. 


CHAPTER VII 
FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 


} \HE only ministerial function you will 


perform under the joint authorization of 

Church and State is the wedding cere- 
mony. It is not enough that you are an or- 
dained minister; your credentials must be ap- 
proved by the County Clerk, the Probate 
Judge, or whatever civil authority passes upon 
such matters in your State. The laws govern- 
ing this are not uniform in all the States. In- 
form yourself on this point before attempting 
to perform a wedding ceremony, or you may 
find yourself with an awkward situation on 
your hands. 

You will have been told, in the theological 
seminary, that the wedding should be made an 
impressive and dignified event. This was good 
counsel they gave you. The fact that mar- 
rlage is not a sacrament, in the opinion of 
Protestantism, does not excuse our frequent at- 
titude of nonchalance in administering a rite 
which should never be celebrated or received 
otherwise than “‘soberly, advisedly, discreetly, 
and in the fear of God.” Persons who object 
to the Roman dogma which hallows this cere- 
mony to the extent of giving it sacramental 

143 


144 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


value should pause, on the verge of a polemic 
outburst, and examine the comparative sta- 
tistics which disclose how very much better is 
the Catholic than the Protestant record of 
faithfulness to wedding vows. ‘This points a 
moral. It indicates that the more impres- 
sively solernn this rite is made, the better are 
the chances of its permanent value. In these 
days of startlingly depressing reports from the 
Court of Domestic Relations, any procedure 
which may be presumed to dignify matrimony, 
and deepen the significance of the obligations 
involved, deserves the respectful attention of 
all men empowered to perform this service. 
Notwithstanding the fact that your instruc- 
tors, in the seminary, did their best to impress 
you with the responsibility imputed to you, as 
indicated above, it is doubtful if they told you 
much about the actual technic of the wedding. 
The procedure of it you may have to learn in 
the rough school of experience. It is entirely 
possible that at your first wedding you did not 
know enough about the enterprise to be able 
to instruct the lucky fellow which side of his 
bride he should stand on. I distinctly recall 
the curious questions addressed to me on the 
occasion of the first rehearsal I ever attended, 
in the capacity of officiating clergyman, pref- 
atory to a church wedding of much pomp and 
circumstance; and how I wished, that night, I 
might be able to swap all that I knew about 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 145 


the Minor Prophets for a ten-minute chat with 
somebody who knew all about weddings. 

Let me speak first about the impromptu 
wedding that drops in on you, at the parson- 
age, or at your church office, unannounced. 
These people, unattached in any way to you 
or your institution—merely bobbing up from 
nowhere—are not always treated with quite so 
much consideration as they deserve. These 
cases, instead of being handled with “a lick 
and a promise,” require all the attention you 
can give them. You are warranted in having 
a five-minute chat with them, previous to the 
service, in which you put them at their ease, 
and win their friendship. Never send a wedded 
pair of strange people away with the feeling 
that they and their affair meant nothing to 
you beyond the fee. While you are engaged 
in the necessary clerical work on their marriage 
certificate, let them understand that you are 
interested in their future happiness. Don’t go 
through this operation mechanically, as if you 
were signing the receipt of a telegram. Find 
out where they are going to live. Make an 
effort to keep track of them, later. 

Probably most of the weddings at which you 
officiate will be held at the home of the bride. 
Even if it is to be a very simple affair, the prin- 
cipals will be glad to have a little talk with you 
on the day before the wedding. They should 
be assured that you will not permit them to 


146 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


make any awkward blunders. Recite for them 
the important phases of the ritual you propose 
to use. Remember that while this is “‘all in 
the day’s work,” so far as you are concerned, 
it is the greatest moment of their lives, thus far. 
Humor them if they seem more fussy than 
necessary over the minor details of the pageant. 

You should gather all the information you 
can lay hold upon, anent the technic of wed- 
dings. When rehearsals are held, you will be 
asked many questions. It is impossible, of 
course, to expand here upon every conceivable 
situation; but a typical case, or two, may be 
cited to advantage. Here is, for example, the 
impending marriage of Edith, the only child, 
who, her father declares, “‘by Jingo, is going to 
have a wedding that'll knock ’em cold!” It is 
to be a home wedding, but there will be a hun- 
dred and fifty guests; lots of out-of-town people; 
a hired caterer, a hired director of pageantry, a 
hired orchestra; and all the rest of the trim- 
mings—regardless of expense. At the last 
minute, however, when the rehearsal is going 
through its preliminary skirmishes, in the midst 
of violent confusion, Aunt Efhe will arrive from 
New Orleans, and the hired director of cere- 
monies will have a four-dimensional problem 
on her hands. Aunt Effie will take a few tucks 
in the procession, object to the height of the 
floral altar, move the candelabra away from the 
“chancel” to decrease the fire risk, and protest 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 147 


against having the maid of honor start, from 
the head of the stairs, when the orchestra plays 
“Tum, tee-tee, tum’’—deeming it much better 
to wait until the passage ‘Tee, tum-tee-aye- 
tum-tee-tee””—which just brings everything out 
right, at the altar, don’t you know. 

After this debate has successively passed 
through the various stages of excessive polite- 
ness, oh-but-my-dear-ing, dignified hauteur, 
dangerously suppressed exasperation, thinly 
veiled contempt, frank exchange of personal 
insults, and is rapidly approaching imminent 
physical combat, Edith’s hysterical mother will 
beam brightly with an inspiration! She won- 
ders why nobody had thought of it before! 
They will put it up to you to decide whether 
the will of Aunt Effie or Madame Etta Quette 
shall prevail! 

Frequently, in pursuit of your vocation, you 
will be elected the official goat, by acclamation, 
on occasions apparently demanding your sub- 
missive acceptance of the distinction; but here, 
if I were you, I should gracefully decline the 
office. At such a moment, you should be able 
to recall that you wish to see the principals, 
alone, for a little while, to tell them what they 
should know about the ritual. Perhaps, while 
you and they are gone, the racket may be arbi- 
trated. 

It is unwise, I think, to attempt any of the 
wedding service, at rehearsals, in the presence 


148 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


of the relatives and friends. This rehearsal is 
mostly for the purpose of organizing the bridal 
procession so that all parties to it will know 
exactly what is expected of them. You should 
talk to the principals about the ritual, and ask 
the immediate attendants of the pair into your 
conference when the ring business is discussed. 
You will find young people quite apprehensive 
about the ring. ‘They are going to fumble it, 
they think, and drop it. I never saw a ring 
dropped; but I have rarely prepared a couple 
for a wedding when this fear was not expressed. 
Once, the three-year-old ring-bearer, tiring of 
the event, and remembering something else she 
wished to do, ducked out, between the pair 
who were in the process of becoming one, and 
was in a fair way to put a crimp into further 
proceedings. Bystanders rescued the ring, and 
permitted Flossie to go about her other affairs. 
Since that time, I am always anxious when the 
baby niece is invited to carry the ring. 

You may easily relieve all anxiety about drop- 
ping the ring. If the ring-bearer is present, 
she hands the ring to the best man. If she 
carries it in a rose, she simply holds up the rose 
and he takes the ring in his fingers. Or, if 
there is no ring-bearer, the best man has it in 
his pocket. In any event, then, he takes it 
from the rose, or from his pocket, with his 
fingers. He places the ring in the bridegroom’s 
open palm. The bridegroom does not touch 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 149 


the ring with his fingers, but offers it to his 
bride, who takes it from his palm with her 
fingers and places it in the minister’s palm, 
or upon his book. Now the bridegroom takes 
the ring in his fingers, and places it upon his 
bride’s hand. In this manner—transferring the 
ring from fingers to palm, palm to fingers, 
fingers to palm—the chance of a blunder is 
avoided, and the fear of a blunder is dispelled. 
This may sound like a very trivial matter; but 
you will have set many a nervous fear at rest 
by such little suggestions which indicate that 
you know what you are about, and are not 
likely to permit them to make themselves 
ridiculous before their friends. 

We will suppose that the home wedding is 
to be conducted without quite so much fuss as 
Edith’s. You will be asked to furnish advice 
concerning the order of events—seeing there 
is no hired director of ceremonies. You should 
be prepared to do so; ready, however, to com- 
ply instantly with the wishes of the household, 
should they fail to coincide with yours. It is 
very simple. ‘The bride and her father—if she 
has one—are up-stairs. So are all of her own 
attendants, be they few or many. ‘The bride- 
groom and the best man are out in the butler’s 
pantry, or tucked away somewhere else, down- 
stairs. When it comes to the actual wedding, 
you will be there with these men—wherever 
they are. At the rehearsal, if you are giving 


150 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


advice, you will only pretend to be with the 
bridegroom. You will stand at the improvised 
altar, offering suggestions. Ribbons will be 
stretched, probably by the ushers, or juvenile 
members of the household, about two minutes 
before the procession starts, indicating the line 
of march. Whatever manner of music is used, 
the conventional wedding-march will no more 
than conclude its opening measures than the 
minister leaves his place with the men, in the 
kitchen, and moves slowly toward the altar, 
followed, at a distance of ten feet, by the best 
man and the bridegroom, the latter walking to 
the left of his attendant. ‘The minister is not to 
come galloping in, making no endeavor to keep 
step with the music. He is not to signify, by 
his attitude, that he is willing to go through all 
this flummery, just to please their caprice; but, 
as anybody can see, he considers it rather silly. 
He is not to stay out in the parlors and chat 
with arriving guests, up to the last minute, and 
make his way to the altar, hastily, when he sees 
the bridal party approaching. Many a minister, 
seeming, out of his greatness, to disdain the 
petty pomp of such an occasion, is pronounced 
a very dull fellow by the audience. If he 
thinks thus to create the impression that he is 
quite too important to be made conformable 
to the little details of this event, he only sur- 
prises the cultured persons present with his 
gaucherie. 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 151 


When the men start toward the altar, the 
signal is passed, by some one charged to do so, 
to the people up-stairs. The best man and 
the bridegroom will have arrived at the altar, 
and are waiting, before any of the ladies ap- 
pear. These gentlemen are, at best, only lay 
figures; and should have their performance all 
out of the way before the really important per- 
sonages show up. Equally spaced, in the line 
of march, are the various members of the bridal 
train. In this particular party, we will say 
that the first to appear is Gladys, our little 
niece, six years old, bearing the ring. Next 
comes sister Maud, as maid of honor, and 
finally, side by side, come the bride and papa 
—the elder on the right. Papa will have been 
dragged into this affair by brute strength. 
And now that he has reluctantly consented to 
it, the task imputed to him is giving this good 
man a great deal more worry than the cause 
seems to justify. It isn’t a bad idea to have a 
few minutes with him, in the library, after the 
rehearsal, reciting to him the valiant deeds of 
his friends Messrs. Smith, Jones, and Robinson, 
who, under compulsion to do this same thing, 
against their several wills and accords, distin- 
guished themselves with great credit. If papa 
doesn’t buck up, after having his heroism thus 
challenged, try reconciling him to it with the 
solemn reminder that it is our common lot. 
Anyway, he ought to feel complimented that 


152 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


Susie wants him to do it for her. Suppose she 
did not want him! How would he feel about 
that? But, don’t neglect the old chap, utterly, 
or appear unmindful of his misery; for his is a 
dificult role to play. He ages under it mark- 
edly. He fairly totters under the weight of 
the years which his part in the affair imputes 
to him. Moreover, he has a dangerous piece 
to say, in the ritual, inasmuch as it consists 
of only two words, which hardly gives him a 
sporting chance to retrieve himself, in case of 
error. To stumble on a single syllable means 
that he got half of his part wrong. Be gentle 
with papa. 

Well, let us assume that you are at the altar 
and all the figures in the picture are properly 
placed. If there are ushers, they will have 
taken their place at the right end of the line, 
perhaps. Much of this is subject to the local 
conditions. The persons immediately before 
you, not counting the other attendants than 
the best man, papa, and the maid of honor, 
are, in the order of their standing—from your 
left to right—the best man, the bridegroom, 
the bride’s father, the bride, her maid of honor. 
The ring-bearer is directly in front of the best 
man, or slightly to his right. 

Do not begin the service until the figures are 
all properly in line about the altar; and do not 
hurry the ritual. This service is to be read 
with dignity; not in the sepulchral tones of the 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 153 


committal service; but certainly not with the 
chatty informality of an after-dinner speech at 
the Rotary Club. Take your time. Make it 
impressive. 

Probably no wedding was ever yet conducted, 
to which the participants had looked forward 
with any degree of interest and careful plan- 
ning, wherein the minister was not previously 
charged to make the service “‘just as brief and 
simple as possible.” You will be instructed, 
occasionally, that “we do not want any lines 
to say, in the ceremony.” You are entirely 
justified in telling them candidly that if they 
think you don’t know how to perform a wed- 
ding ceremony, they are at liberty to employ 
some one with higher credentials. For these 
people to inform you how to perform this rite 
is animpertinence. It is no less impudent than 
for the patient to give his surgeon orders as to 
the exact amount of time he may devote to 
the excision of his liver. When any callow 
youth of twenty-three comes to me with sage 
counsel about his wedding service—instructing 
me how it is to be performed—he invariably 
learns something new and interesting about the 
courtesies due a professional man, touching the 
matters with which he is presumed to have 
special knowledge. 

Presently, in the service, papa will fade out 
of the picture. You have asked ‘‘Who giveth 
this woman ?’’—and papa has uttered his two 


154 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


significant words. That is the end of him. He 
steps back to rejoin mamma, who is close enough 
at hand to permit this without too much tramp- 
ing around. The party tightens up, now, to 
close the breach caused by the loss of papa; 
and things proceed. The more instruction 
these people have, in advance, and the less 
stage direction they require, in the course of 
the service, the more impressive it will be. 
When you have arrived at the ring business, it 
is not necessary for you to call for that property 
audibly. A significant gesture of your left 
hand, toward the ring-bearer, barely noticeable 
by any besides herself, will set all that matter 
in motion. If there are two rings, the maid of 
honor has the one the bride proposes to give 
to her husband. The bride slips it on his hand 
when she recites the words whereby she gives 
him her troth. Whether this ring is to de- 
scribe the circle, in the manner of the bride- 
groom’s ring, is a matter of option. It is much 
more impressive—because more simple—if the 
bride’s gift to her husband does not travel 
about from hand to hand, but is given her by 
her attendant, and placed upon her husband’s 
hand, by herself, during her formal recitation 
of the lines mentioned above. 

Now that we happen to be talking about the 
wedding ritual, you will probably decide, after 
you have experimented with some of the other 
forms, to settle down on the Episcopal service, 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 1s 


perhaps with slight modifications, as the finest 
and fittest of the lot. It is dignified, impressive, 
not too long, not too short, carries conviction, 
and has the advantage of being a historic 
document. 

Once in a long while, a wedding goes forward 
without a ring. ‘The bride considers it a badge 
of servitude, and will not have it. You are to 
govern yourself accordingly. If she doesn’t 
want it, it is none of your affair. Whenever the 
ring is used, however, the service which ac- 
companies it should be employed, exactly as 
it stands in the book. The “worldly goods” 
which he assigns to her may be purely hypothet- 
ical; but it is the spirit of the thing that you 
are after. Once I was marrying a man to a 
woman who had all the money, and he insisted 
upon saying: “With all thy worldly goods I 
thee endow!”—and seeing he was speaking 
words of truth and soberness, albeit not exactly 
according to rote, I let it stand at that. A 
good story is told of a young medical student 
who, in venturing upon matrimony, had brought 
nothing to his bride but a very bright future. 
A few of his student friends were asked in to 
honor the event; and when he recited the con- 
ventional line, ‘With all my worldly goods I 
thee endow,” one of the young students whis- 
pered to his mate: “‘There goes his bicycle!” 

In the episode of the “‘plighting of troth,” 
do not say to the bridegroom, “I—with your 


156 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


name,” for, in his nervousness, he may repeat 
exactly what you have said to him—“‘J, with 
your name.” I have heard them do it. Say, 
rather: “I, John, take thee, Mary.” Always 
use Christian names. If unacquainted with 
these people, ascertain, before you go into 
the service, by which of their names they are 
known best. Do not ask Mephistopheles Ga- 
briel Jones, who has been signing his name “M. 
Gabriel Jones”’ all his life until, in the stress of 
that inquisition at the court-house, he betrayed 
his secret—do not ask him to say: “‘I, Mephis- 
topheles, take thee, Margaret.”’ Find out if he 
isn’t Gabriel to his friends. 

Avoid all these nice little “folksy” cere- 
monies, which begin with some syrupy stuff 
about the cute little nest these birdies are going 
out to build on a neighboring bough—mere silly 
saccharine slush, wallowing in the sentimental- 
ity of sentiment. You will find that all of these 
home-brewed rituals lack a great deal of the dig- 
nity, power, and charm of the service to which 
I have referred. If you are bent upon using 
something that you made at your own homiletic 
work-bench, try to render it as impressively as 
possible. The wide handicap you have ac- 
cepted will make it important that you should 
put the best of your personality into it. Of 
course even the Episcopal service can be read 
in a tone that lulls into trances those whom it 
does not anzsthetize; but I think you will find 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 157 


this the most nearly fool-proof of all the cere- 
monies by which this rite may be celebrated. 
When the service is ended, the bride has to 
be kissed by her husband. Later, she will be 
pawed over by the assembled multitude. You 
may kiss the bride yourself, if she and her fam- 
ily are well known to you. Whatever system 
you adopt, apropos of this matter, and in respect 
'to your own case, you would better adhere to 
it, or you may some time let yourself in for the 
criticism that an occasional bride is, in your 
opinion, hardly worth the bother. At all 
events, the bride is to be kissed by her husband. 
You will confer a favor upon these young peo- 
ple by telling them what is to be their cue for 
this business. It not infrequently happens that 
when the minister comes to a full pause, after 
having pronounced them husband and wife, 
the kissing episode arrives on the scene some- 
what in advance of its necessity. When young 
and inexperienced, I used to be obliged to pry 
them apart, now and then, in order to finish the 
service according to the rules. It makes a dis- 
concerting moment; and inspires foolish persons, 
in the audience, to an unseemly levity. Indeed, 
you may have trouble, yourself, going through 
the rest of it with a sober countenance. Inform 
the bridegroom that when you close your book, 
he may kiss the bride—and not until then! 
The church wedding is difficult to detail 
upon, so largely is this event governed by the 


158 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


type of building and general accommodations 
of the place. In the main, the same order of 
procession is observed as in the home wedding. 
It will be remembered pleasantly if your people 
are informed that there is no fee expected for 
heat, light, etc., assuming that they are—some 
of them—members of your church. Surely it 
is little enough for the church to do, on such 
an occasion, if it tenders the free use of its 
property. It is customary for the bridegroom 
to hand the janitor of the church a small fee 
to recompense him for his extra service; but if 
he should forget to do so, that functionary is to 
consider his work, on that occasion, a distinct 
part of his job. 

As has been stated earlier, the minister’s wife 
gets the fee. The minister should accept the 
wedding fee when it is tendered him. Indeed, 
he may go further than that, and insist upon 
payment, if the young fellow is mean enough to 
attempt an evasion of his obligation. He knows 
that it is the customary thing to do. It will 
be good discipline to see to it that he behaves 
like a gentleman. In twenty years, I have 
handed back just one wedding fee. The boy 
followed me out of the house, to the gate, and 
said: “Do you happen to have any change 
about you?” I replied: “Did you want some 
of this back ?”” I had not noticed the denomina- 
tion of the bill he had handed me. “If you 


please,” he answered, in some confusion, “‘it 


FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE 159 


was ten dollars; and it is all I have. I thought 
I would give you about three.’”’ Having been 
married once myself, I figured that the whole 
ten dollars would not be too much with which 
to start on a honeymoon; so | gave it all back. 
But, ordinarily, the bridegroom will feel much 
better over the transaction if he pays. 

Once, not long ago, the young fellow sought 
private audience with me, after the ceremony 
at the parsonage, and whispered that he would 
mail me a check in a day or two. I had not 
conceived a violent affection for the chap. He 
looked the cad, all over. So I replied—point- 
ing to the stub on the license which was to be 
returned to the County Clerk—‘“‘ You see that 
form which must be returned to the court-house 
before your marriage is a matter of legal rec- 
ord?” He nodded. “I shall mail that to the 
County Clerk,” I said, ‘‘when I have received - 
your check.” Whereupon he said he guessed 
he might as well pay it now—though I sus- 
pected that his use of the word “now” made it 
redundant. 

Occasionally, some minister reports strange 
events relative to the fee. ‘The story is told of 
a young couple who, immediately after the 
evening ceremony, divested themselves of their 
wedding finery, and took train for New York 
to make close connections with an outbound 
steamship. Having returned from _ several 
months abroad, the bridegroom collected his 


160 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


evening clothes; and, in going through the 
pockets, gasped, hurried to the telephone, and 
called up the minister. He had found the 
twenty-dollar gold piece, carefully wrapped in 
tissue and enclosed in a little pasteboard box, 
where it had remained, undelivered, through all 
these many weeks. Contritely, he remarked: 
“Doctor Smith, I am chagrined to learn, upon 
my return home, that you did not receive a fee 
for our wedding!” “Ah, yes; but I did, Rich- 
ard! It was the most interesting and unusual 
fee I ever received. You gave it to me, your- 
self.” “Impossible!” said Richard. “What 
was it?” The minister chuckled. ‘It was,” 
he replied, “‘a small, uncut piece of Piper Heid- 
sieck chewing tobacco.” 

Preserve your relation to your wedded 
couples. They will be glad to be on the mail- 
ing-list of the church. When they are settled, 
callon them. You may properly feel that you 
have some claim on them, and they will appre- 
ciate your attention. Remember them on 
Christmas with whatever greeting you happen 
to be issuing. On the first anniversary of their 
marriage, drop them a line. Your little atten- 
tions may have more to do, than you realize, 
with their remembrance of the solemnity of their 
vows. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 


AM not posted on the sentiment prevailing 

to-day among students in theological semi- 

naries relative to ministers’ libraries; but 
when I was in the seminary, about the time 
our justly celebrated twentieth century came 
to pass, almost everybody seemed to think it 
imperative that the preacher should be able to 
make a large showing of books on his study 
shelves. 

In preparing to meet this forthcoming de- 
mand, many were the pitiful frugalities prac- 
tised by young theologues that they might enter 
upon their first pastorates accompanied by an 
awesome array of books. 

Our rivalry in the fascinating game of collect- 
ing them was intense; and because the test of 
the library was quantitative, rather than quali- 
tative, we haunted the second-hand shops, re- 
joicing in the frequent purchase of treasures 
inexpensive and obsolescent. I am sure that 
none of our professors ever encouraged us to 
any such foolishness. It was a silly fad for 
which they were not responsible, unless it 
should have been a responsibility of theirs to 
talk to us, constructively, on the subject of the 

161 ; 


162 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


minister’s library. Not realizing how ill ad- 
vised was the course we took, we pursued our 
quest very seriously, with a zeal worthy of a 
more commendable enterprise 

One of the heaviest losses I ever sustained was 
experienced during the holiday vacation of our 
middle year when the building which served as 
combination dormitory and lecture-hall burned 
down while we were at home for Christmas. 
Very few of us had been thrifty enough to carry 
fire insurance on our literary antiquities, so the 
loss was complete. It was also tragic in the ex- 
treme, considering at what mighty cost we had 
achieved this property. It had not occurred to 
us that the building and its contents might be 
inflammable; though we should have known that 
nothing on these premises ‘could be considered 
a good fire risk—so dry were the ancient tomes 
hoarded in our rooms, to say nothing of the 
dryness of that which held forth in the recita- 
tion rooms on the first floor. After the con- 
flagration, much talk was had in our church 
periodicals concerning the disaster, and scores 
of loyal alumni of the institution, learning of 
our bookless plight, organized a movement to 
replenish our devastated libraries from their 
own shelves. They meant it as a kindly benev- 
olence; and I hereby register the hope that I 
may be forgiven the smile that is on my face as 
I type these reminiscent lines. 

Without doubt, these good men, in their 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 163 


early ministry, had been of the same mind as 
ourselves in regard to books, and had laid up 
for themselves treasures which, while subject 
to moth and rust, were reasonably safe from 
thieves who might possibly break through and 
steal. Having learned of our emergency, they 
came forward to sacrifice part of their store. 
We were duly grateful. I recall that I accepted 
my quota of these works with a thankful heart 
and a sober countenance. ‘To be sure, our class 
did not fare quite so richly as the seniors who, 
very properly, I think, were given the first 
shot at this literary covey, but we came out of 
it well supplied. Most of these books were a 
bit too far out of date to stir one’s interest to 
the extent of perusing them, and not quite old 
enough to be of value to a collector; but they 
were books. 

With the indefatigable patience of the be- 
sieged spider, I set about the task of rebuilding 
a library which was to certify to my callers, 
when I had achieved a pastorate, that their 
young minister was evidently a person of in- 
dubitable scholarship. So, the gentle art of 
book-collecting went on, again, with feverish 
interest. Our efforts were redoubled because 
of our loss and delay. Had we ever stopped to 
consider the intrinsic merits of a volume before 
possessing it, that fact no longer weighed with 
us. The thing to do was to get books, no mat- 
ter who wrote them, or when, or how, or why. 


164 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


My own collection knew no bounds as to sub- 
ject-matter. It ranged all the way from a fine- 
looking group of annual reports of the curator 
of the Smithsonian Institution to a rather badly 
battered set of Matthew Henry. ‘This last- 
mentioned work I have always regarded as one 
of the most skilful adventures in the science of 
explaining the obvious and avoiding the de- 
batable ever undertaken by mortal man. My 
library included a Gibbon’s “Rome,” minus 
two volumes. I contrived to get along, some- 
how, without the missing numbers. ‘There were 
a few books reputed to be scientific in charac- 
ter which had been written previous to the dis- 
coveries of the past half-century. I had a book 
containing the addresses made at a convention 
of the Iowa Dairymen’s Association, and an- 
other presenting a survey of the insurance 
companies doing business in Ohio. There were 
a lot of old Baedekers, and many public-school 
text-books. 

The gifts I had received increased my wealth 
in such works as “Thirty Thousand Thoughts 
for the Thronged Theologian,” “Hasty Help 
for the Harassed Homiletician,” “The Care and 
Cultivation of the Lachrymal Gland,” “ Ready- 
to-Serve Anecdotes,”. “Saturday-Night Salva- 
tion for Shiftless Sermonizers,” “New Whoops 
for Old Barrels,” “Soft Sayings of Sobbing Sen- 
timentalists,’’ “Cut Gems,” “Polished Jewels,” 
“Death-Bed Remarks of Atheists,” “Spectac- 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 165 


ular Conversions,’ and ‘‘Plenteous Pep for 
Pulpit Pounders.”’ I may not be quoting these 
titles accurately, considerable time having 
elapsed since I have thought of them; but their 
theses might very properly have been set forth 
under these themes. 

For fully five years I lugged this junk about 
with me, taking less and less pride in its posses- 
sion, until it dawned upon me, one day, that 
the enterprise of owning and housing a library 
of this character was a sign of feeble-minded- 
ness. In this, I am sure my colleagues will all 
agree with me; but, slightly in advance of 
rating me unique in this particular manifesta- 
tion of imbecility, you might make a sketchy 
inventory of your own bookcases to determine 
your right to indulge in any such hilarious, 
homeric, cataclysmic laughter as occurs, in 
brackets, on the pages of the Congressional 
Record. I claim that no man who possesses 
in his “working library” a book he has not 
opened for five years is entitled to do any 
spoofing. 

Not long after I had arrived at the momen- 
tous decision indicated above, a decrepit spring 
wagon backed up to our door, one morning, and 
about eighty per cent of my library departed 
therein. I sold these books by the pound; and, 
because old paper was not fetching much, that 
day, the receipts did not require me to ask for 
the assistance of a policeman when I went to 


166 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


the bank. Incidentally, you will find that 
whenever you have anything to sell, the market 
has just slumped unaccountably. It is quite 
different when you buy. 

So much time and bother had these books 
cost me, through the years, that I was almost 
reluctant to see them go; but, once they were 
out of my sight, I began to rejoice in my new 
freedom. ‘The old hoarding passion was gone. 
I was now quite at liberty to give a book away, 
if I wished, seeing it was of no consequence 
how many or how few books I displayed in 
my study. No longer under compulsion to 
build a big library, I could buy exactly the 
books I wanted. If I could afford to purchase 
five dollars’ worth in the month of April, there 
was no reason why I should not spend the en- 
tire appropriation on a single volume, instead 
of distributing my budget in the interest of 
bulk. Henceforth and thereafter, I proposed 
to keep my book-shelves free of all rubbish. I 
have adhered to that resolution with a fair 
degree of fidelity. Of course one occasionally 
buys rubbish, thinking it to be something 
other; but one doesn’t have to keep such things 
very long. Not counting reference works, I 
doubt if I have more than five hundred books 
in my possession at this moment; though if I 
were to have kept all the books I have bought, 
in the course of my ministry, they might make 
a very impressive showing. 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 167 


It is doubtful if any man may be of much 
assistance to a friend when it comes to the 
selection of books, for the reason that there is 
so wide a disparity of tastes and tempera- 
ments. One man’s five-foot shelf of sine qua 
non may prove to be stale, flat, and unprofitable 
to his neighbor. There are, however, certain 
books without which a man in our profession is 
seriously inconvenienced. For the benefit of 
you younger men in the ministry, I am going 
to call the roll of the books which, it seems to 
me, should be found in every preacher’s library. 
Doubtless I shall omit some very important 
ones; but I shall not include any that is unim- 
portant. 

A good place to begin is with the Book of 
Books. You need one Bible that is unadorned 
with helps. This lies at your elbow on your 
study desk. It will be no extravagance if the 
minister possess this work in all the commonly 
recognized versions. Being somewhat conser- 
vative, on this subject, I do not incline toward 
the more chatty translations now appearing in 
large numbers. For the most part, these al- 
terations of the conventional text do so little 
to clarify the meaning of the traditional words 
that it is to be doubted whether their contribu- 
tion to this cause justifies the sacrifice of the 
historic language precious to our forebears. 

It is, of course, important that religion should 
be revised and invoiced, from time to time, in 


168 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


the interest of preserving its vitality. The 
“old-time religion,” to which many persons 
think we must now return, has little more to 
justify it than an old-time chemistry, an old- 
time physics, or an old-time political geography. 
But it is entirely possible to make adequate 
use of our traditional Scriptures, in their bear- 
ing upon our current moral and religious prob- 
lems, without rephrasing them into the lan- 
guage of the market-place. In your efforts to 
give your people a modern interpretation of the 
Bible—a very good ambition—you may be 
tempted to read, in the pulpit, from some re- 
cent revision in which Paul is speaking after 
the manner of the Boys’ Work Secretary at 
the Y. M.C. A. This is of no advantage. In 
a world so bewildered over the rapid and radi- 
cal changes which have come to pass, in our 
time, it is important that we should hold fast 
to the actual form of certain legacies unless 
that form must be changed in the interest of 
truth. I cannot see what advantage is to be 
had in making the first verse of the thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians read: “Although I 
talk the language of humanity and the angels, 
and do not love, I am but making a brassy noise 
like a clanging cymbal.” 

Much fault has been found with the Catholics 
for conducting their religious services in Latin; 
nor am I disposed to consider this language 
properly adapted to the age and country in 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 169 


which we live. But whatever justification 
there is in it resides in the fact that these re- 
ligious rites are observed in a language which, 
because it is no longer subject to change, pos- 
sesses certain “eternal” qualities; and religion 
deals with matters of eternal significance. 
That language is positively insured against any 
loss which might be suffered through the intro- 
duction of transient idiom, short-lived collo- 
quialisms, or clap-trap slang. It is not the 
language of barter, dicker, and trade. It is 
reserved for one specific use—the establishment 
of human-divine contacts. We Protestants 
cannot have that, and do not want it; but we 
should be on guard against tinkering too much 
with our traditional Scriptures. Because long 
patriarchal beards are not now the fashion, I 
doubt the wisdom of employing some modern 
artist to delete grandfather’s whiskers from the 
valued portrait which hangs in the hall. 

You should have a Bible containing a reliable 
concordance, set in readable type. A cross- 
reference Bible is almost a necessity. The holy 
books of other religions than ours are interest- 
ing to men of our calling. The Koran has a 
right to shelf-room in our libraries. Seeing 
that it is the sacred book of about one-fourth 
the human race, it, is quite beyond the reach of 
our sneers. If you do not know the Upani- 
shads, the Dhammapada, the Zend-Avesta, 
the Vedic Hymns, and the Life of Buddha, it’s 


170 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


about time you went to the trouble of reading 
them. No religious leader need talk much 
about the supremacy of his faith until he is 
somewhat conversant with other religions than 
his own. 

How much attention you are to pay to the 
Old Testament in the original is a question to 
be answered by yourself. If you are mentally 
geared to the Hebrew tongue, and enjoy work- 
ing with it, one would think you would be 
making a mistake to neglect such research. It 
is doubtful if many active pastors pursue their 
studies in Hebrew very far past the day of 
graduation from the seminary. ‘There are two 
excellent reasons for the study of a foreign 
language—mental discipline, and the practical 
benefits of becoming conversant with another 
tongue. As for the mental discipline involved 
in the study of Hebrew, the minister is likely 
to feel that he has availed himself of that in 
school. He has finished with it, just as he is 
done with Calculus. As to the practical bene- 
fits of this study, he may have reason to doubt 
whether his sketchy knowledge of Hebrew war- 
rants any assurance, on his part, that his trans- 
lations are even approximately correct. 

My own estimate of such study is this: I am 
not sorry that I spent the time and went through 
the drudgery of learning a smattering of He- 
brew in the seminary; but I am glad that it is 
not required of me to learn any more of it. If 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 171 


you have a talent for Hebrew, keep it going. 
Doubtless it repays the efforts of men who en- 
joy it. Ifit is hard work, you can invest your 
time otherwise to much better advantage. 

One does not feel exactly this way about the 
Greek. In the first place, the minister is likely 
to have had a good foundation of Attic Greek 
in college. Indeed, he should have had; for the 
literary worker is quite at a disadvantage with- 
out it, seeing how heavily our own language is 
indebted to the Greek. In a peculiar manner, 
it is a tongue that deals with power; with things 
dynamic, kinetic. The age in which we live 
thinks largely in such terms. It is to your ad- 
vantage to keep up your Greek. You will be 
doing an excellent service for yourself if you 
resolve to make your Greek Testament mean 
as much to you as these books mean in English. 

There should be at least one Bible dictionary 
or encyclopedia in your library; two, if you can 
afford them. I have no notion of attempting 
to offer a bibliography in this brief and casual 
survey of our library essentials, but may call 
your attention to certain works commonly 
recognized as staples in our profession. If you 
may only have one Bible dictionary, perhaps 
you should own Hastings. If you can afford 
another, the logical purchase is “The Encyclo- 
pedia Biblica.” The former is more conserva- 
tive than the latter. So soon as you are able 
to have them both, get them. If you propose 


yi 


172 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


to be a workman who needeth not to be 
ashamed, you must have proper tools. Do 
your economizing somewhere else. 

Doubtless you are already equipped with all 
the apparatus you need pertaining to dogmatics. 
You should be an historian. If you have never 
quite realized the necessity for this, let me ad- 
vise you to read Doctor Shailer Mathews’s 
“The Spiritual Interpretation of History.” At 
no time, since the dawn of civilization, has 
the general public taken so large an interest in 
history as now. It is a significant fact that 
Wells’s “Outline of History” is being sold in 
department stores. Perhaps our present be- 
wildered state of mind, due to the rapid politi- 
cal, social, and economic changes in the world, 
accounts for the fact that so many people are 
eager to learn how our forebears carried on when 
their times were out of joint. You should be 
ably prepared to meet this growing demand for 
more light on the past. Do not rely upon any 
interpretation of some dramatic historical epi- 
sode that you found in “The Golden Treasury 
of Sermonic Illustrations,” or heard somewhere 
in a tent from the lips of an itinerant prophet. 
There might be somebody in your audience who, 
knowing the facts about that event, would in- 
stantly lose his respect for your intelligence. 

The minister’s chief task is to set forth a cor- 
rect portrait of Jesus Christ. That being true, 
he should own every recognized book dealing 


'¢ 


nal 


9, A 
THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 173 


with the Life of Christ—all of them, ancient 
and contemporary! And sin our Christi- 
anity owes so much to the *Peulingé influence, 
there should be plenty of help, # the minister’s 
library, to an understanding sof the man of 
Tarsus. Not only is the prea¢her equired to 
study the lives of the outstanding,figures in 
Holy Writ, but he will find thesbiographies of 
the great a very stimulatin study. any 

The preacher should own: best of the 
devotional literature. Quite, a”rich legacy of 
prayers has been traduced to us, deserves 
our study. Many helpful ‘volume prayers 
are appearing, of contemporary prgduction, to 
answer the increasing demandyef people who 
feel the need of aids to devotion. You do well 
to saturate yourself with the bese’ prayers of the 
mystics and current religious leaders. Too 
little attention is being paid to thy matter by 
many ministers. Some preachers4are at their 
weakest when attempting to direct their con- 
gregations to God in prayer. The pulpit peti- 
tion that is composed on the spot, extempore, 
is more often than otherwise a very wearisome 
and uninspiring performance. The natural 
inclination of the unprepared preacher, when 
offering a public prayer, is to assume the horta- 
tory style. He thinks he is praying, but he is 
only preaching with his eyes shut. It might 
be remarked, in passing, that the chief defect 
in the average “pastoral prayer” is its extreme 


174. THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


length, if the laymen’s criticisms are to be ac- 
cepted at face value. Verily, we are not heard 
for our much speaking. It is unimportant that 
we should call the roll of every trifling want. 
God knoweth that we have need of all these 
things. The prime object of prayer, after all, 
is not so much to make out an itemized list of 
our physical requirements, as to establish a 
human-divine relationship. Learn to lead peo- 
ple into a devotional mood. Study the best 
models. One hears occasional criticism passed 
upon the “book prayer” or the “‘read prayer,” 
but as between a public prayer that is read im- 
pressively from a liturgy, or a rambling address 
to Deity, involving a recitation of current events 
and an invoice of the trifling tittle-tattle of 
the hour, one would think the choice simple 
enough. 

Now that so much discussion is rife on the 
floors of great religious conclaves concerning the 
alleged conflict between science and religion, 
and the newspapers are giving front-page at- 
tention to polemic debates contingent upon this 
issue, the minister is expected to have some con- 
victions anent this disputed matter. Just as 
the easiest way of declaring one’s political faith 
lies in saying, “I am a Democrat,” or “I am a 
Republican,” so is it a great saving of one’s 
time and energy to be able to announce, rela- 
tive to the matter indicated above, “I am 
a Modernist,” or “I am a Fundamentalist.” 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 175 


Surely you are not going to content yourself to 
accept the banner that somebody has thrust 
into your hand, and meekly follow some parade 
down the street, shouting a slogan that has 
been agreed upon as best appealing to the un- 
tutored imagination of the mass! You can 
afford to do some thinking, on your own ac- 
count. If you do not relish the idea of being 
herded into one or the other of these two cor- 
rals, there is no reason why you should submit 
to such treatment. If you want to vote a 
scratched ballot, that is your right. 

Humanity has had occasion to revise the 
terms of its religious beliefs, many times; and 
it appears that our generation has been asked 
to undertake this task again. Considerable 
anxiety is being displayed by the conservatives 
—and not without some warrant—lest, in this 
reappraisal of religion to make it consonant 
with modern thought, the fundamentals may 
become obscured. ‘This is a very real appre- 
hension. In a time like this, there is always a 
danger of “‘throwing the baby out with the 
bath.” 

Being somewhat weary of that word “funda- 
mentals,” which has «aken on the aspect of a 
cultus, let me speak of these imperatives of re- 
ligion as “the elements.” I think we are all 
agreed that the elements of Christ’s teaching 
may be summarized under three general heads 
—faith, love, and service. If we emphasize 


176 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


these principles, and succeed in committing our 
congregations to them, I do not fear that we 
will find ourselves losing the respect of scientific 
men. They, themselves, in the course of con- 
ferring larger benefits upon our social order 
through the application of research in the fields 
of surgery, histology, chemistry, and other 
prophylactic and remedial activities, are putting 
these principles to work—the Christ principles 
of faith, love, and service. Neither will we 
find ourselves sustaining awkward relationships 
with students of “the humanities,” if we can 
show them that their cause is also ours. But 
to back up, stolidly, against the ivied gothic 
of traditional “‘churchianity,” and defend its 
dogmatism declared in days remote, on another 
continent, against the invasion of contempo- 
raneous thought concerning life, is to deal a 
blow at the cause we had hoped to serve. 

This insistent call on the part of so many 
people, to-day, for a solution of our problems 
of religious belief by a return to a more vigor- 
ous insistence upon the effete adiaphora of the 
ancient creeds and confessions is a serious dis- 
closure of unwillingness or inability to measure 
up to the demands put upon our generation. 
Instead of making the adventure of seeing this 
matter through to a satisfactory solution, many 
are disposed to choose the easy way, and say: 
“Let us turn back!’’ Having come to the 
crossroad, and being somewhat undecided which 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 177 


way to turn, we are advised to retrace our steps 
in the direction from whence we have come. 

No; the problem will not be solved by our 
denial of what latter-day chemistry and physics 
have made clear, or in our sneering at the dis- 
coveries of archzologists, ethnologists, paleon- 
tologists, and anthropologists. Neither is it 
permitted us to sink back, with a weary sigh, 
and remark yawningly: “Oh, well, these things 
haven’t anything to do with religion, after all!” 
Yes—but they have! At the present hour, they 
have almost everything to do with religion! 
An attitude of serene indifference to this prob- 
lem may satisfy your layman of seventy-plus, 
who may have formed his mental habits more 
than a half-century ago; but you now have a 
new generation on your hands, for whom light 
has been broken into many more colors than 
used to be refracted through a prism! 

If you are seriously in earnest about wanting 
to keep abreast of the modern thinking on these 
disputed subjects, secure the books written by 
men recognized as experts in these respective 
fields. Read the works of men who are inter- 
ested in the study of evolution, for example, 
not as it affects or is affected by religion, but 
who treat of it in the dispassionate mood of the 
truth-seeker who is not trying to make out a 
good case for some pet theory. If you would 
inform yourself concerning this matter, it is 
much better that you should secure your data 


178 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


from people who are not out to demonstrate any 
given theological hypothesis—either liberal or 
conservative. 

Whatever conclusions you arrive at, be hon- 
est. Be intellectually moral. I have heard 
men denouncing evolution (which they so com- 
monly refer to, these days, as “ Darwinism”’— 
albeit Charles Darwin is related to the present- 
day theory of evolution very much as Robert 
Fulton is related to modern steam-navigation). 
When queried as to the extent of their famili- 
arity with Darwin’s writings, they not only 
admit but boast that they have not yet con- 
taminated their minds—they are proud to state 
—with any such untenable trash. This, I 
should say, is a very unfortunate state of mind 
for any man to be in who is looked upon as a 
moral leader. 

Chemistry is brimful of striking illustrations 
for pulpit use. Medicine and surgery provide 
apt suggestions, too. Books are to be had, 
stating in non-technical terms, some of the most 
interesting developments in these fields. The 
doctor is always appreciative when you refer 
to the advancement in his profession; provided 
you speak with knowledge. Perhaps it will 
please you to own a large number of the little 
books now appearing which explain, simply, so 
many of life’s activities. Take “Navigation” 
as a sample. This little primer will help you 
to the right nautical phrase, if you are in doubt. 


THE MINISTER’S LIBRARY 179 


Even so far away from the sea as Kansas, your 
remark in Wichita that the captain had thrown 
the hawsers back upon the pier, drawn in the 
gangway, and boxed the compass, prefatory 
to setting forth upon his long voyage, would 
probably fetch a grin to the countenance of 
some descendant of a maritime family. Check 
all your illustrations for accuracy. Not many 
will bring you to book for your mistakes in 
theology; but they will be inclined to discount 
the whole of your knowledge if they find it in- 
accurate in matters of technical detail with 
which they are familiar. Build into your li- 
brary all the aids you can find to insure against 
these blunders. 

Read essays—ancient and modern. Read 
plays. Keep informed about contemporary 
verse; it may be assumed that you have the 
standard classics. Provide yourself with an 
abundance of nature studies. The habits of 
ants, bees, wasps, and spiders—how wealthy 
we have become in literature on this subject. 

Every library possessed by one engaged in 
literary composition should include the standard 
apparatus of the craft; to wit, one good desk 
dictionary, a more pretentious dictionary to 
fall back upon when the little one has reached 
the end of its tether, a manual of style, a book 
of synonyms, and a few volumes of stock cita- 
tions from classic poems, plays, essays, and ora- 
tions, from which you may quickly verify the 


180 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


verbal accuracy of some quotation you wish to 
make, but only half remember. You should 
have a good general encyclopedia, and make 
diligent use of it. When you have an un- 
claimed half-hour on your hands, and are 
scouting for a new line of thought, take down 
a volume of the encyclopedia and leaf it through 
—not searching for anything in particular, but 
on a general tour of discovery. 

You should own the best sermons of the great 
preachers; but you are not to read any one of 
these sermons while you happen to be at work 
on the specific theme of which it treats. A 
great deal of unintentional and perhaps uncon- 
scious plagiarism may be committed by having 
the sermon of some other man too fresh in your 
mind while wrestling with the same thesis. 

There should be a good reading-lamp at the 
head of your bed; and, every night, you should 
have a book at hand with which to bring the 
day to a delightful close. My own choice, for 
such reading, is the travel book. The day’s 
work is done. I am stealing no time from any- 
body if I read exactly what pleases my own 
fancy, now, for I am supposed to be asleep. 
Any oculist will tell you that it is a vicious habit 
to read in bed. Maybe so. But the travel 
book is the thing, unquestionably. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE MINISTER’S MAIL 


WO dips of a pen in a bottle of ink are 
good for fifty words, within which limits 
a great deal may be said. Two cents 
suffice to carry this message to its destination. 
So if the minister has just learned that the 
Parkers have achieved a new grandson, the 
pleasure of going on record with his full ap- 
proval of the movement is easy and inexpen- 
sive. With low-test gasolene priced at twenty- 
six cents per gallon, and every hour of the 
preacher’s daylight as precious as the great auk 
is rare, it really isn’t‘necessary that he should 
call upon the Parkers to felicitate them upon 
the advent of their grandchild in a neighboring 
State. Indeed, the Parkers are not expecting 
any notice to be taken by him of this event 
which has brought them so much joy. If he 
recognizes the matter, at all, his courtesy is a 
bit of bonus added to their happiness. He can 
attend to this in five minutes or less, lick a 
stamp, mail the note, and the deed is performed. 
The Parkers rejoice in the communication, read 
it to the neighbors, and remail it to Helen, 
who triumphantly shows it to the baby. 
The Strattons, having resolved to spend the 
summer in Europe, are delighted to have a 
181 


182 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


letter from the minister in which he expresses 
his pleasure over this really wonderful experience 
so soon to be theirs; for this is the first trip 
abroad, and the prospect of it has eclipsed every 
other fact in the Strattons’ lives. To show 
their appreciation, they send him post-cards 
from every port of call, and are almost over- 
come with affection for him when they find a 
letter from him waiting for them at the Ameri- 
can Express office in Geneva. It doesn’t have 
to be a long letter; the shorter the better, in- 
deed, for they are busy folk, these days, rush- 
ing about from tomb to shrine, trying to see it 
all. His total investment in the Strattons, to 
date, has cost about ten cents, counting post- 
age and stationery, plus fifteen minutes of his 
time; and now the Strattons are friends of his 
for life. One can’t have things so desirable as 
the Strattons’ lasting affection for less cost. 
Johnnie Thompson’s name has appeared in 
the evening paper topping a list of the high- 
school seniors who made all A’s. Johnnie de- 
serves congratulation from the minister of his 
church. A few lines certifying that the minis- 
ter is proud to have such fine, upstanding chaps 
in his congregation will insure him a fresh grip 
on Johnnie’s heart; and Johnnie’s father and 
mother will bear up under it, too, with great 
fortitude. Gladys Williams is reported to be 
leaving, presently, for Philadelphia, to study 
nursing. A personal call is not demanded here; 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL 183 


but a note of approval and warm commendation 
will help her mightily through those first weeks 
of loneliness and the drudgery which the novice 
in her profession experiences. 

Every morning, immediately after breakfast, 
the shepherd of the flock can invest a half-hour 
very profitably by writing a half-dozen such 
letters as these. They need not be extended 
letters. After one has completed the first page 
of such a message, it is probable that whatever 
one adds, thereafter, will amount to subtrac- 
tion. A few words are ample to convey the 
idea that the shepherd is genuinely concerned 
over the welfare of his flock. If he keeps his 
eyes open and his ears to the ground, he will 
be learning, every day, of the big and little 
things his parishioners are doing in the general 
interest of the public weal. These specific 
forms of service should be recognized. The 
Youngs have donated some radium to the Provi- 
dence hospital. They don’t have to be mem- 
bers of his church to get a letter from him in 
which he tells them that they are of the Brother- 
hood of the Burning Heart. Not only do they 
richly deserve commendation, from his quarter, 
but it encourages them to further investments 
of their means in the cause of altruism. 

It is a great thing to keep in mind certain 
birthdays, especially of the aged and infirm; 
and at least the first anniversary of a serious 
bereavement. “He remembered!” they re- 


184. THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


mark, as the note is passed from hand to hand 
on the day when the whole tragedy surges over 
them again, fresh as if it had happened yester- 
day. Last year’s date-book should lie on the 
minister’s desk, ready to provide him with the 
data necessary to the proper timing of these 
letters. It is frequently the case that the min- 
ister can make his personal services and friend- 
ship more valuable to the young men and women 
of his parish who are away at college than when 
they were at home. Especially at examination 
time are they in the market for notes of en- 
couragement, with just a touch of serious ad- 
monition to the effect that Plunkville expects 
every man to do his duty. 

It may be entirely superfluous to add that 
such letters as are suggested above should be 
pen-written. Of course it is easier to dictate 
them to a stenographer, or type them oneself; 
but they are never quite so convincing when 
done through a third party, or on a machine. 
The business of writing with a pen is irksome, 
no doubt; but it is very excellent discipline. 
The machine is almost too fluent for the oper- 
ators good. Many a preacher would develop 
a finer and more forceful rhetorical style by re- 
turning to the laborious process of pen-writing, 
occasionally. It is possible for a man of our 
profession to achieve such proficiency with the 
typewriting machine that he records his ideas 
faster than they accrue. 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL 185 


Chiefly is this admonition presented to the 
ministerial brother who possesses what has ° 
come to be known among our craft as “the fatal 
gift of letter-writing.’ The unfortunate letter- 
writer can do himself a greater disservice, in a 
briefer length of time, with a machine than a 
pen. He is peevish about something, we will 
suppose, and sits down at his typewriter to 
splutter his indignation. The thing is capable 
of recording his wrath as rapidly as he emits it. 
Remarks which he would never think of making 
with a pen exude from him at this moment. 
Many a preacher has done himself out of his 
pastorate and his most substantial friends by 
way of an imprudent letter, written in haste and 
anger. Sometimes it has been a fourteen-page 
epistle to Deacon Strong, phrased “‘in all can- 
dor,” relative to some sensitive situation prob- 
ably involving matters of administration. Not 
infrequently it is a whimpering document ad- 
dressed to some disaffected member of the 
church in the town whose dust he has but re- 
cently shaken from his feet—a general inven- 
tory of the ills from which he has flown to make 
adventure with others which, at this date, he 
knows not of. Not content with having foozled 
his job so badly that he left the church in a 
state of disruption, he desires to make the dis- 
aster complete by cuddling what little is left 
to him, in that place, of friendship nurtured in 
a sense of grievance. 


186 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


That which is written in ink cannot hope to 
possess the lasting qualities of remarks done 
into the wall with a mallet and chisel; but it is 
sufficiently enduring to survive for a long time 
after their author has repented of his hasty 
imprudence; and he who commits his ill humor 
to paper should reflect, while sealing the en- 
velope, that so soon as he pushes this thing 
into the mail-box, the deed is done. Many a 
man, in a testy mood, impulsively writes scath- 
ing letters to people with whom he happens to 
find himself in disagreement, thereby discredit- 
ing himself in the opinion of men who suspect 
that he might not possess either the courage 
or audacity to say these things, were they met 
face to face. 

Every preacher, whose pulpit and platform 
work is carried on with a degree of fearlessness, 
can expect to be a target for much caustic criti- 
cism hurled at him through the mail. Some 
of these letters are anonymous, and many more 
of them are practically anonymous, so little do 
the signatures matter. If he is thin-skinned, 
these yips and snarls of his ungracious critics 
are likely to worry him. No matter how non- 
chalant he may seem to be in his attitude 
toward such unsolicited correspondence, letters 
of this sort always leave a bad taste in his 
mouth. His natural inclination may prompt 
him to reply, at once, with the biggest shot he 
has in his locker. He will do well to remem- 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL 187 


ber that if he is too sensitive to stand up under 
unfair and ungentlemanly attacks made upon 
him because of his public utterances, he has no 
business to indulge himself in any freedom of 
speech. Merely because the other fellow has 
lost his temper, and has called him hard names, 
does not excuse the preacher for climbing down 
to wallow in the mud with his opponent. 

You younger men of the profession must be 
constantly on guard against falling victim to the 
strange delusion which obsesses many of our 
own calling who apparently feel privileged to 
ransack the whole vocabulary of execration to 
find terms mean enough to launch at persons 
of other opinions than their own. In the course 
of twenty years in the ministry, I have had 
quite a large number of letters written to me, 
in critical mood. Many of them have been 
almost beyond endurance and beneath con- 
tempt. ‘The very smallest and meanest of them 
have been received from preachers who chose 
this singular manner of convincing me how 
much more holy and worthy was their interpre- 
tation of religion than my own. I think it 
may be put down as a general rule that a man 
does himself a bad turn when he writes any- 
thing that he knows he wouldn’t have the in- 
clination or the brass to say to his correspondent 
were they facing each other, astraddle of a 
log, ten miles from camp. It doesn’t take 
much courage to be heroic and sassy by mail 


188 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


or over the telephone. A very small man can 
scribble some very large words. 

All this is suggested by the thought that 
every scrap of mail that goes out of the preach- 
er’s office should be dignified, temperate, and 
gracious, no matter what may be the provoca- 
tion to requite the ungenerous in the coin with 
which they appear to be most familiar. You 
will get all sorts of communications from all 
sorts of people. Most of it is pleasant; some 
of it is infuriating. You will receive badly mis- 
spelled advices from people you didn’t know 
were in existence. One nice old lady wrote to 
me, once, after hearing an address of mine, 
that she doubted if I had ever saved any “soals.” 
Of course the raw insolence of this makes a 
heavy drain upon one’s patience. You will dis- 
cover that the bulk of the letters you receive 
from people who are disposed to put you on 
the grill are conceived in ignorance and brought 
forth in illiteracy. That must not mislead you 
into the belief that all of the intelligentsia are 
on your side, and all the roughnecks and bone- 
heads are of the opposition. It means only 
that the majority of the people who hastily grab 
up a pen to indite billingsgate, on any subject, 
are not likely to give evidence of much refine- 
ment of manner or magnanimity of mind. 

The gentle art of correspondence has slumped. 
Most men are too busy, or think they are— 
which comes to the same thing—to put them- 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL 189 


selves on paper in a leisurely, gracious, contem- 
plative mood. But there are a few who are not 
yet so completely stampeded and panic-driven 
by their multitudinous duties that they have 
no time or opportunity for an occasional ex- 
change of the written word. One of the most 
enjoyable of the few recreations I indulge in is 
the correspondence I maintain with a small 
group of men whose time appears to have been 
sufficiently well organized that they can afford 
to give me a half-hour of it, now and then. 
When I write to these people, I put my best foot 
foremost. I am inclined to believe that they 
are somewhat meticulous in the choice of their 
language when they write to me; and I must 
show my appreciation by doing my very best 
for them. They tell me about the new books 
they are reading. Sometimes those comments 
are ever so much better than the books, as I 
discover later. They give me the benefit of 
their private thinking on the live issues of the 
day. Not infrequently they tell me a funny 
story. It is a delight to get such letters. But, 
as usual, it is even more blessed to give than to 
receive. The painstaking composition of one’s 
outgoing mail, addressed to the members of this 
fraternity, is excellent exercise. The homilist 
really needs some avocation of this sort to keep 
his style fresh and vigorous. Most of us take 
ourselves all too seriously. 

Now, to make a delight of correspondence, 


190 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


one should be supplied with the proper tools. 
First, there is the paper. Perhaps not every- 
body feels the same way about this; but, to 
me, a letter is always so much more interesting 
if it is written on good paper. It is a compli- 
ment to have a letter that represents at least 
a slight investment on the part of the writer. 
To receive a communication written on cheap 
note-paper hastily ripped out of a tablet, all 
ragged at the top, makes one think poorly of 
oneself. If old Polonius will permit a liberty 
to be taken with his celebrated advice to his 
son, I would suggest to the youth of our pro- 
fession: “Costly thy paper as thy purse can 
buy.” If an engraved letter-head is an ex- 
travagance for you, be sure that it is at least 
a good job of printing. Don’t feel necessitated 
to include, in this printed matter, the hours of 
the stated meetings held in your church, or 
any pious maxims wrought in your homiletic 
laboratory. It is barely possible that you may 
have earned some degrees; perhaps other dig- 
nities have been conferred upon you by way 
of recognition of good service. But your sta- 
tionery will look so much neater if uncluttered 
with these ornaments. 

This business of selecting a style of stationery 
and letter-head should be undertaken with 
much care; for you don’t want to change your 
policy every time you find yourself out of 
paper. If it means something for a business 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL I9I 


house to adopt a style of stationery, bearing the 
name of the firm in a device which persists 
through the years, it means quite as much for 
you to pursue the same policy. Don’t tinker 
with your name. It is bad business to sign 
yourself variously—A. B. Jones, Arthur B. 
Jones, A. Browning Jones, Arthur Browning 
Jones, etc. Resolve early what kind of a Jones 
you propose to be, and stick to it through thick 
and thin. 

Perhaps it is not necessary to say that we 
need not feel under compulsion to use the old 
stock phrases which make so much business 
correspondence tiresome and lifeless. It is 
silly to write: “Your favor of the tenth instant 
is at hand and contents noted and in reply 
would say—”’ whatever it is that you would 
say. It’s dull enough to get stuff like this that 
has been milled through the shop of some third 
assistant to the vice-department-head in a busi- 
ness concern; but when it comes from offices 
handling the character of business that we do, 
itis inexcusable. Put a bit of sparkle and spon- 
taneity into your letters. Be direct and busi- 
nesslike; but avoid the old stereotyped phrases. 

Keep a watchful eye out for the brother who 
addresses you “My Christian Friend”’ and sub- 
scribes himself “Yours in Jesus’ Name.” ‘This 
will probably turn out to be an invitation to 
purchase a few shares of oil stock to protect a 
very fine lease that is located in the imagina- 


192 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


tion of somebody who holds forth from the 
fifty-first floor of a tall building on Manhattan 
Island. Or, if it isn’t that, you may discover 
it to be an appeal from some sect like ‘The 
Holy and Triumphant Saints of God”’ who wish 
you to take up a collection to aid them in put- 
ting a new roof on their place of worship in 
Zanzibar. 

Be wary of the ex-minister who signs himself 
“Rev.” So-and-so—and has some beautiful real 
estate to dispose of, at a sacrifice, among his 
ministerial brethren. He will tell you that he 
wants to do you good; and so he will, if you 
give him a chance. Your mail-box will always 
be gorged with alluring offers of stocks which 
are to make you wealthy. You can put it 
down as a safe proposition that any stock 
which is required to be peddled by mail, or 
otherwise, among the members of our profes- 
sion—traditionally poor and without a financial 
margin—is fraudulent. And while on this sub- 
ject of investments—for quite a large percentage 
of the preacher’s incoming mail is publicity 
matter from fake brokerage houses—you ought 
to know that when any man wants to sell you 
stocks on ridiculously small instalments, he is 
peddling something that has already been 
milked dry at headquarters. Is it reasonable 
to suppose that any concern would go to the 
bother of hawking its certificates among the 
preachers, to be paid for in little dribs, if the 


THE MINISTER’S MAIL 193 


stuff was worth having? Stocks which have 
any apparent future are all gobbled up by the 
people who have first access to them. More- 
over, the agent knows this full well; and when 
he approaches you with his wild tale about 
prompt and easy riches for you by this process, 
you are justified in talking to him in precisely 
the same tone you would probably employ were 
he to say: “ Reverend Easymark, I consider you 
an imbecile.”’ 

We were talking about tools. You cannot do 
all of your writing with a pen. The bulk of 
your correspondence will be done with a ma- 
chine. You can afford to have a good type- 
writer. It is to be doubted if you can afford to 
have a poor one. You may have discovered, 
ere this, that it is easier to go back over a mis- 
spelled word and stamp it out with a string of 
xxxx’s, than to erase the blunder. You have 
learned that when in doubt whether the word 
is spelled with an “ei” or an “ie,” it is quite 
simple to type it both ways, and let the reader 
take his choice. Perhaps you have sometimes 
gone back to an s, and pounded a z on top of it 
in cases where there was some reason to doubt 
which of these letters the occasion demanded. 
Some day you will send a sloppily written thing 
like that to the one man who may have it all 
to say whether or not you get the chance to 
improve your fortunes; and he will remark: 
“T don’t like the way his mind works!” Buy 


194 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


a fresh ribbon for your machine frequently. 
See that the carriage gives you a left margin 
without any short lines. Adopt an office style, 
and adhere to it. If you resolve to indent 
every paragraph five spaces, don’t alter the 
resolution. Standardize your processes of cor- 
respondence, so that when anybody who knows 
you picks up a letter of yours, he can identify 
it. ‘This method gives people the impression 
that you are orderly of mind and steady of 
purpose. You owe it to yourself to create and 
conserve that impression. 

It is not necessary to file all the letters one 
receives. Seventy-five per cent of them, prob- 
ably, have no future use, and are better off in 
the waste-basket so soon as they have received 
attention. But it is well to retain—for perusal 
on drab days—the little notes you get, from 
time to time, telling you how wonderfully you 
have helped somebody. It makes a fine anti- 
dote to take for some of the nasty medicine 
that is sure to come to you if you say anything 
at all that is worth saying in your pulpit. I 
have sorted out a few really nice letters and 
pasted them in a book. When I shall have 
come into my sear and yellow, I propose to 
comfort myself, occasionally, with them; and 
let them remind me that it was all worth doing, 
if for no better reason than to achieve these de- 
lightful rewards. 


CHAPTER X 
SERMON-MAKING 


N°‘ small part of the minister’s everyday 


life is occupied with the preparation 

of sermons. I hesitate to invade this 
field, because I make no pretense at being a 
skilled homiletician, and this book is not a homi- 
letic treatise. But the fact remains that one 
cannot speak of the duties of our profession 
without considering this function which is, 
beyond question, the most important service 
we render. 

The minister who permits his multifarious 
civic and social obligations to minify his useful- 
ness as a preacher will discover that while he 
may be regarded as a very fine fellow and an 
efficient errand-boy for two dozen philanthropic 
organizations, more or less actively engaged in 
social service, his ability as a religious leader 
and spiritual adviser is questionable, even in 
the minds of his most ardent admirers. 

Doubtless most of the dull preaching that 
one hears so much about, these days, is due, 
largely, to the lack of a long-term programme 
of sermonizing. It is to be suspected that too 
many preachers do not know, with certainty, 

195 


196 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


what their next Sunday’s sermons are to be 
about until Thursday morning, when, they are 
reminded, it is time to send the topics to the 
papers. Any man who is ambitious to become 
a really useful and successful preacher should 
be warned that this is not a promising way to 
proceed. He should know, in the first week 
of March, what his morning sermon is to treat 
of on the first Sunday of May, assuming the 
morning service to be the chief event in his 
church. 

Fortunately, the seasons of the church year, 
and certain outstanding commemorative events 
nationally observed, serve as general guides to 
the planning of many if not most of the sermons 
in American pulpits. So rapidly have these 
“special days”’ found their way into the minis- 
ter’s calendar, in recent years, that a mild 
protest is being raised against the further en- 
croachment upon his homiletic options. If the 
various “causes” had their way, we could easily 
assign every Sunday of the year to a discussion 
of the philanthropies undertaken by certain 
zealous groups of humanitarians. We are en- 
tirely justified in giving time and attention to 
the most widely recognized, and established, of 
these movements; but the preacher who heeds 
every summons to advocate a cause soon finds 
himself with a very restless and half-starved 
flock on his hands. It seems hardly necessary 
to spend a Sunday morning in celebration of 


SERMON-MAKING 197 


“‘Be-kind-to-animals Day.” If the Christi- 
anity taught in that place is functioning prop- 
erly, it may be assumed that the people who be- 
long to the institution are endeavoring to be 
as decent as possible to the animals, all the 
year round. 

It may be of interest to make a brief survey 
of the possibilities offered by the more important 
festivals, ecclesiastical and secular. Let us ar- 
bitrarily begin with the opening of the church’s 
activities in the late summer. We will suppose 
that the minister has been away on his vaca- 
tion. He should have a vacation. Only an 
extraordinary minister can do as much work 
in twelve months as he can do in eleven. An 
occasional objection is raised to the minister’s 
month off, on the ground that the Devil never 
takes a vacation. Unless it is presumed that 
the minister should try, so far as possible, to 
model his programme after that of the hypo- 
thetical person just mentioned, that objection 
points no moral. 

Your vacation should be spent elsewhere than 
within the bounds of your own parish. Now 
and then, a minister announces that he is not 
going away, this summer. He will do his rest- 
ing at home. It cannot be done; and nobody 
ever tries it more than once. Merely to be 
excused from one’s pulpit obligations for a 
month means very little. The pastoral re- 
sponsibility does not ease up, for a moment, 


198 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


and that is, after all; the heavy part of the min- 
ister’s load. Go as far away as your resources 
will permit, preferably out in the open where 
nature is on display in the rough, and living 
conditions are different from those which obtain 
at home. 

If you are quite in love with your profession, 
you may find that, after an idle week, you are 
thinking considerably about your programme 
for the coming autumn. Without meaning to 
encourage you to sacrifice a single minute to 
your work that really should be spent in play 
—for the sake of your vigor and physical fitness 
—I should suppose that you will arrive home 
with a fairly definite plan for your pulpit work 
over a period of two months, perhaps. 

The first Sunday of September, if you are 
back from your vacation, then, is booked for 
you; so you need have no worriment about that. 
It is Labor Sunday. Do not expect things to 
start off with a bang, that day; for Monday is 
a holiday, and many people have decided to 
take these days off for a brief trip, somewhere. 
They can start early Saturday afternoon, and 
stay away until Tuesday morning, when school 
begins. Your congregation will be small and 
disspiriting. Because I am a believer in start- 
ing off the fall season in the church with every 
yard of canvas to the breeze, I time my vaca- 
tion so that I am not yet returned on Labor 
Sunday. Experience has taught me that it re- 


SERMON-MAKING 199 


quires more effort to generate a given amount 
of momentum, in the church, by observing 
Labor Sunday than omitting it. 

If you are on hand, Labor Sunday, pull 
through the best way you can, censuring no 
one for your small audience and feeble begin- 
ning. Many of these absentees are taking the 
only days off that are permitted to them. Do 
not scold. 

The schools having opened, there is a good 
reason for your preaching, on the following 
Sunday, concerning the interrelated obligations 
of parents, teachers, and scholars. There will 
be some new teachers in town. As strangers, 
they may welcome a mailed announcement 
stating your theme. If it pleases you to shape 
your discourse so that you are speaking directly 
to the teachers, you can make use of this device 
to tell the congregation something about the 
fineness and importance of the service the 
teacher renders the State. Should you announce 
that you will speak on “Beyond the Curric- 
ulum,” you will have a chance to talk to the 
teachers of their opportunity to create ideals, 
and influence budding thought, quite aside from 
the mere drudgery of imparting information on 
“the three r’s.”’ After you have done this, you 
may have reason to believe that it was one of 
the most valuable and effective services of the 
year. 

On the next Sunday, you may find it con- 


200 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


venient to observe what some church schools 
call ‘Rally Day,” or, still better, “ Recognition 
Day”’—when the necessity of systematic re- 
ligious education is brought attractively to the 
attention of your people, and the school is con- 
ducted in a manner that draws respectful atten- 
tion. This leaves only one more Sunday in 
September to plan for. This will afford you 
an opportunity to preach one of those monu- 
mental sermons that you blocked out while 
roaming through the woods. 

I find it of much advantage to preach “‘series”’ 
sermons, generally about four to the group. 
When one announces a longer series than that, 
both the preacher and the congregation are 
likely to be tired of it before it is done. More- 
over, you will find it difficult to secure more than 
four consecutive Sundays without missing some 
important church festival or national event 
worthy of observance. Sometimes you can so 
arrange a series of sermons that the one which 
happens to occur on a festival day may be used 
in conjunction with that issue; for example: 
we will suppose that you have announced a 
series for October on “Spiritual Portraits.” In 
your advance publicity—for of course you will 
want to prepare and mail to each household of 
your membership, and the “prospectives,” a 
neatly printed four-page folder, setting forth 
the themes to be treated, and your reasons for 
addressing yourself to this particular cause at 


SERMON-MAKING 201 


this time—you could say that we, who are al- 
leged to be progressive in our theology, are in 
the habit of referring to the narratives in 
Genesis as “the folk-lore of the early Hebrews” 
—not to be considered as actual photographs 
of historical events, but rather as “spiritual 
portraits” of the moral problems which men 
have always encountered everywhere. Too fre- 
quently, having commented feelingly upon the 
richness and beauty of these “spiritual por- 
traits,” we go on about our other business with- 
out pausing to explain to our people exactly 
wherein that same richness and beauty re- 
sides. So you can do it now in this series. 
Obviously, your first sermon of the group will 
be on “The Creation.”” Be honest, as a stu- 
dent, in dealing with the Adam legend, but be 
sure you find the “portrait.” 

You will discover that this is good pulpit 
business in these times of unusual interest in 
the theory of evolution. If you are tactful, 
sympathetic, and mindful of your terms, you 
should be able to present an interpretation of 
modern thought on this subject, almost any- 
where, without having to send in a riot call to 
the police. It is better to keep away from that 
word “evolution.” There are a half-dozen ac- 
ceptable synonyms. You may be able to con- 
vince some people that your ideas are every 
way worthy of respect when you talk about 
“racial development.” Were you to have said 


202 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


“evolution,” they might have balked. “Natu- 
ral progression”’—that is a good phrase, and 
comes to the same thing. Just now, the word 
“evolution” is like a red rag to a bull, especially 
in the opinion of people who know little or 
nothing about it. Doubtless this is why the 
bull is afraid of the red rag; if he knew what it 
was, he would have no fear of it. 

The second sermon of the October series may 
treat of “The Deluge.” ‘There is a great story 
here. You can contrast the redemption of a 
single household in a wooden boat with the 
redemption of the whole social order on a 
wooden cross. If you have the nerve, you 
might add that it was not a cross, either, that 
burned with the flames of sectarian hatred, but 
adrip with sacrificial blood! The third sermon 
should consider the pioneering patriarchs in the 
Promised Land. ‘‘The Quest’? would be a 
good title for it. You will be doing this on the 
Sunday nearest to the commemoration of the 
discovery of America; and if you cannot make 
Abraham and Columbus come to speaking terms 
with each other, in this sermon, your imagina- 
tion needs a massage. “They went out—both of 
them—not knowing whither they went, but 
plainly declaring that they sought a country. 
The last sermon of the group might deal with 
“The Exodus.” He is not much of a preacher 
who cannot make that story stand up and 
breathe in these times of utter bewilderment on 


SERMON-MAKING 203 


the part of men and nations, seeking “‘a road 
out”’ of their present predicaments. 

If your congregation seems to relish this idea 
of a consecutive chronological study of the Old 
Testament, and large audiences have been se- 
cured, keep up steam and go on while the going 
is good. Announce another series for Novem- 
ber. Call it “Ancient Hebrew Kings”—or the 
equivalent of that. The public is temporarily 
interested in the ancient kings. So long as the 
people are talking about the tomb of Tut- 
ankh-Amen, you may be assured of a hearing 
if you talk about his contemporaries. In this 
group of four sermons tell the stories of Saul, 
David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. 

You should not forget to plan well in advance 
for your Thanksgiving Day service. It is not 
enough to celebrate that occasion on the Sunday 
previous to this unique American festival, or 
content yourself with a mid-week Thanksgiving 
talk on Wednesday evening. Thanksgiving 
should be observed on Thursday. Make use 
of this event. It is the only “all-American” 
religious festival on the calendar. All the peo- 
ple are agreed about Thanksgiving. It is in- 
sured against any sectarian prejudices. The 
churches are urged, by a presidential decree, to 
observe the day. It has become customary, in 
many places, for a “union service” to be 
planned, in which (theoretically, but not prac- 
tically) a group of churches, geographically 


204, THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


related, pool their interests. These “union” 
meetings are rarely worth the bother, which is 
a scant tribute to them since nobody goes to 
much bother to make them successful. Because 
it is a “union service,” no one feels any keen 
responsibility for it, and it is usually a fizzle. 
It is held in the Presbyterian church, the Metho- 
dist minister is preaching the sermon, and the 
Baptist choir is furnishing the music. Because 
he is not in charge of the affair, the Presbyterian 
minister thinks he has done his bit by instruct- 
ing the janitor to have the church unlocked and 
heated. Because it is not his church that the 
service is held in, the Methodist preacher con- 
siders his duty limited to the address he has 
promised to deliver. The Baptist choir leader 
confers with nobody, hoping to receive full in- 
structions when he arrives at the church. A 
little handful of people—less than three hun- 
dred, perhaps—come out to the service. Three 
hundred people, in an auditorium capable of 
taking care of eight hundred people, have a 
sense of being associated with a lost cause, 
whether that occurs on Thanksgiving Day or 
any other day. An insignificant cash collection 
is taken, to be turned over to the local charities; 
and the dismal enterprise is over for another 
year. Announce your own Thanksgiving Day 
service. In all of your publicity matter, be- 
ginning in early November, keep this coming 
event before the attention of your people. Your 


SERMON-MAKING 205 


choir should have anthems in rehearsal in an- 
ticipation of this day, so long as six weeks be- 
fore it occurs. If you wish, you may pack your 
church on Thanksgiving morning. It’s all up 
to you. 

The public begins to think about Christmas 
quite early in the season. ‘The sooner you be- 
gin to capitalize this Christmas concept, the 
better off you are. Have your December ser- 
mons built around the idea, and make an attrac- 
tive series of them. The merchants will be 
saying: “Do your Christmas shopping early, 
before the stock is all picked over!” Be as 
good a psychologist, and induce a Christmas 
state of mind before your people are being ham- 
mered with it on every side commercially. It 
is well to have your Christmas series of sermons 
all ready to announce on Thanksgiving Day. 

These December sermons can be made a 
great delight. Some time try a series on “What 
Christmas Has Brought to Civilization.” In 
four sermons, consider Christ as an economist, 
a sociologist, a statesman, and a theologian. 
You will not wish to phrase them so academi- 
cally as that; but these attributes of the Master 
would provide you with your thesis. A fruitful 
group of December sermons is a study of “ His- 
toric Christmas-Tides.”’ The specific themes of 
the first three might be “Christmas in the 
Fourth Century,” “Christmas with the Cru- 
saders,” and “Christmas with the Pilgrims.” 


206 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


The group would arrive at a satisfactory climax 
with ‘‘Christmas in 1924.” The people learn 
something about church history, from these 
sermons, which is good for them. More and 
more | am coming to believe that we cannot 
place too much emphasis upon that legacy of 
faith and sacrifice bequeathed to us from a 
mighty past. It means a very great deal to 
be in and of an institution that has the right 
to apostrophize “‘the glorious company of the 
apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, 
the noble army of martyrs, and the holy church 
throughout all the world.” In this oppor- 
tunistic day of ours, and in this rapidly grow- 
ing country, where our most venerable works 
seem to reek of fresh paint, green lumber, and 
hot rivets, it is not a bad idea to get out the 
ancient treasures, once in a while, and let the 
people see the portraits of our spiritual an- 
cestry. 

On the Sunday preceding the New Year, your 
case 1s made for you. Perhaps you will be 
glad to spend the month of January on inde- 
pendent sermons of an evangelistic nature. 
Once in a long time, it is a good idea to omit the 
announcement of subjects for a few Sundays. 
There will be an element of surprise in this 
plan. Be on guard that you do not surprise 
the congregation by being unprepared. The 
fact that you did not publicly announce your 
themes in advance is not to mean that you, 


SERMON-MAKING 207 


yourself, were unaware what would be the mo- 
tion before the house. 

February brings Lincoln and Washington into 
focus. If you are in a place where you may do 
so without risk of more damage than good, you 
might remember that Darwin and Lincoln, who 
made adventures in the cause of liberty, by 
different routes, were born on the same day. 
Lent will begin presently. If you are the min- 
ister of a church that is accustomed to the ob- 
servance of Lent, your course is more or less 
definitely prescribed. If your church has paid 
no attention to Lent, do your people the good 
service of proving its value to them. An ex- 
cellent way to induce a Lenten mood is through 
a group of three sermons on “The Tempta- 
tions.” That is what Lent is about, anyway. 
This study of the temptations is practically in- 
exhaustible. Not only are these three episodes 
brimming with moral and spiritual precepts, 
but they are intensely practical. Can you 
think of anything more immediately concerned 
with the problems of our day than the eco- 
nomic considerations involved in the Master’s 
struggle over the relative importance of his life- 
work and his appetite? Whether or not man 
does live “‘by bread alone”’ is a vital question. 
Should it not be of interest and value to our 
present crop of Americans to hear the Master’s 
decision on the problem whether it is better to 
gamble with Providence and attempt to take 


208 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


a short cut to fame and influence, or make haste 
slowly? ‘‘Thou shalt not put the Lord thy 
God to a test!’ is a live issue. And how the 
nations of the world are to be won by the Prince 
of Peace—does that not concern us, tremen- 
dously, to-day? 

Sunday-evening sermons, through the period 
of early spring, should accommodate themselves 
to the fact that people are tired of winter, and 
eager to emerge from their cramped quarters. 
They want to travel. They are afflicted with 
wanderlust. If you ever travelled abroad, tell 
them about it now. Give them a group of ser- 
mons on Paul’s missionary journeys. 

Be sure to celebrate Holy Week effectively. 
Do not be satisfied with a little “ prayer-meet- 
ing group” in a corner of the Sunday-school as- 
sembly-room, on the nights of that week. Hold 
your service in the church auditorium, with full 
choir on duty, and the preacher ably prepared. 
If at all practicable, have your Good Friday 
service in the afternoon at three. There is no 
service of the whole year, in my church, that is 
quite so impressive as this, or better attended. 
It is a great opportunity. You must not 
miss it. 

We have a tradition, in our profession, to the 
effect that there is a general “let down” after 
Easter. The minister has had a long, hard run, 
gathering in intensity as he reaches the Day of 
Resurrection, and he is very tired. Easter used 


SERMON-MAKING 209 


up the last of his neural resources. It began 
with the sunrise meeting, out on a hilltop, per- 
haps. (If you have not tried this, make the ex- 
periment. You may be amazed to see the large 
number of people who will welcome it, and at- 
tend it.) Easter was full of events in which 
the minister was required to be at his best. 
He is thoroughly fagged. Perhaps he should 
book an exchange of pulpits, with a neighbor, 
on the following Sunday. 

Make the most of the budding spring. Peo- 
ple are anxious to see it arrive. Phrase your 
topics to intrigue the imagination that longs 
for the return of flowers and sunshine. Life is 
full of renewals—renewals of hope, courage, in- 
dustry, and idealism. ‘There’s a series of ser- 
mons for you. 

Mother’s Day is good for a crowd, no matter 
what you do. We must be careful to keep this 
festival from becoming a mere matter of slushy 
sentiment. ‘There is a chance, here, to do some 
real constructive work on “The Reappraise- 
ment of Womanhood.” Now that the patient, 
resigned mother of the old days, who sat by 
the window, knitting stockings for her grand- 
children, has been succeeded by a new type of 
mother, who plays tennis, drives her own car, 
and pursues a social programme that would 
have brought her own mother, at that age, to 
a not very honorable grave—we must reshape 
our advices on the subject of motherhood. The 


210 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


question is not, whether the modern mother 
is better or worse than her predecessor. The 
problem resides in the fact that she is different ! 

June brings Commencement, Children’s Day, 
and an opportunity to specialize on a group 
of sermons to adolescents. ‘Their parents will 
come, too, if you have anything worth while for 
the youngsters. You cannot preach “heavy” 
sermons in June, anyway. ‘The weather is not 
conducive to the success of inductive logic; so, 
if you are obliged to preach very simply, why 
not address yourself specifically to the children? 
Prepare a patriotic sermon for the Sunday pre- 
ceding the Fourth of July. Don’t begin to 
slip, about the third Sunday of the month that 
was named for Uncle Julius, and claw around 
in the barrel for some of your mildewed homi- 
letic preserves. You will think better of your- 
self, and have a finer time on your vacation, 
if you keep the thing going—one hundred per 
cent right—to the very last hour of the last 
day before you knock off for your well-earned 
leave. 

I suppose you have a right to expect that 
there will be some talk, in this chapter, about 
the actual business of sermon construction. 
As I remarked earlier, I do not pose as an au- 
thority on this subject, and if you are hoping 
that I will tell you something about the mechan- 
ical engineering feat of building a sermon so 
that the introduction will consume one-ninth 


SERMON-MAKING 211 


of the time given to the argument, and the 
conclusion one-eleventh, you are in for a dis- 
appointment. I never yet attempted to build 
a sermon with my watch in one hand and a 
yardstick in the other. If you wish informa- 
tion on that matter, are these things not written 
in the chronicles of divers and sundry sermon- 
smiths? 
Such advice as I may offer is general. First: 
keep yourself in a “homiletic mood.” This 
state of mind is not unlike that of the news- 
gatherer on the local staff of the daily paper. 
Everything he sees is potential news. He puts 
every sight and sound through his reportorial 
laboratory to test it for its news value. You 
must be in a homiletic mood, seven days of the 
week, waking and sleeping. When the plumber 
comes to your house, and you know he is in 
the basement, gouging around in the gloom, 
among the water-pipes, go down and get ac- 
quainted with him. Make him talk; and, when 
you have him going, listen to what he says. 
Talk to the taxi-driver. Visit the fire-engine 
house. Make friends with policemen. Attend 
the municipal court occasionally. Go to the 
jail. Spend an afternoon at the County In- 
firmary. Find out how they got there. Go 
down to the foundry, about four o’clock in the 
afternoon, and watch them pour. Talk to the 
man who runs the dog-store. Spend an hour 
with the man who supervises the collection of 


212 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


the city waste. Ask the man who sells maga- 
zines about the demand in his business. After 
he has told you that clean magazines charge a 
ereat deal more for their advertising space than 
vulgar magazines, because the people who read 
salacious trash are not, as a rule, prosperous 
enough to be in the market for anything ex- 
pensive, you may be inclined to pump him for 
some more information related thereunto. He 
has it, and will tell you if you ask him. En- 
courage the librarian to tell you what sort of 
books are being read, and by whom. Go down 
into the railroad-yards, and spend an hour in 
the cab of a switch-engine, some night. Probe 
for an invitation to attend a meeting of the 
Bricklayers’ Union, and sit around with them, 
for an hour’s chat, after the session. If you 
are looking for live illustrative matter to put 
into your sermons, go out and get it where it 
is! That is precisely what our Master did, 
and apparently His dignity did not suffer 
thereby. You will find more sermon material 
on the streets than you can ever dig out of 
books. It is unnecessary that you should have 
all your experience of life at second-hand. 
Now, as to process. Perhaps you feel that 
you are not quite up to sermon composition on 
Monday. That is a matter of temperament. 
If you think you should keep Monday free of 
all thought about sermons, follow your inclina- 
tion. Tuesday morning, however, you should 


SERMON-MAKING 213 


begin to draw rough “blue-prints”’ of the thing, 
so that you can be thinking about it, in orderly 
fashion, while you go about your other tasks. 
Collect your materials early. Attend to all the 
necessary research as soon as possible. By 
Thursday you may find that what you thought 
was the mere episodal incident in your sermon 
has become the piéce de résistance. If so, you 
should discover that fact on Thursday, and not 
on Saturday night, about nine-thirty. On 
Thursday, you should be writing. Write it all 
—all!—with all the i’s dotted, and all the t’s 
crossed! Whatever policy you may pursue, 
later on, be sure to write it out in full during the 
early years of your ministry. If you wish to 
be unencumbered with notes or a manuscript, 
in the pulpit, that is all very well; but write! 
This gives you a chance to enlarge and enrich 
your vocabulary, and to acquire precision and 
clearness of statement. It will help insure you 
against that chief menace of extempore preach- 
ing—repetition. 

Do not be afraid of the drudgery of writing 
with a pencil, sometimes. Machines can be 
driven very rapidly, with a little practice. 
Many a minister, skilled in the facile use of all 
ten fingers on the keyboard of his machine, 
preaches an extempore sermon, on Sunday, 
even though he may read his manuscript with 
the most slavish attention to its lines. Com- 
position with a pencil is good discipline. It 


214 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


improves one’s style, mostly because it makes 
one think more slowly. 

Be aware that the introduction to your ser- 
mon is going to be a guarantee of its success or 
failure. If you secure the attention of your 
audience in the first three sentences, you stand 
a good chance of keeping it. Your own ex- 
perience will certify that it is at the very begin- 
ning of the sermon—before the preacher has 
yet had time to make his case—that the au- 
ditor goes wool-gathering. The same rule ap- 
plies here that governs your interest in a maga- 
zine article. If your interest is stirred by the 
first sentence, you are likely to read on. 

There is quite a different reaction produced 
whether your first sentence, on Sunday morning, 
is, “Moses had now been wandering about in 
the Mountains of Midian for forty years,” or 
“Last Thursday afternoon, about five o’clock, 
‘two men met down here at the corner of High 
and Main, and one asked the other what he 
thought about the justice of the income tax.” 
Both of these leads may be introductions to 
the same sermon bearing upon the responsi- 
bility of men to put back, into their civilization, 
something commensurate to that which they 
have taken out. But one lead will prove to be 
an anzsthetic, while the other is a stimulant. 
Don’t begin your sermon with platitudes, 
maxims, adages, abstractions, or any other old 
stuff that makes the people yawn. 


SERMON-MAKING 216 


You will have frequent occasion to narrate 
Bible stories. All history—that in the Bible 
not excepted—is biography. Make these an- 
cient people live! If you cannot present Ne- 
hemiah in such a manner that the people will 
see him as a real, flesh-and-blood, one-hundred- 
and-seventy-five-pound man, it will not be for 
lack of data concerning him. These ancients 
must not be portrayed as a group of marble 
statues, or enhaloed unrealities. They were real 
people. Make them breathe, and talk, and act! 

Beware of too much poetry! ‘The last refuge 
of a lazy preacher, on Saturday night, when he 
knows that his sermon has not yet been pro- 
vided with a convincing terminal, is to haul out 
his “‘World’s Best Poetry,” and begin to thumb 
it through in search of a jingle wherewith to 
finish his discourse. The more gifted he is in 
the art of reading poetry, the more he will be 
menaced by this temptation. Presently the 
people become accustomed to the idea that when 
he arrives at the poem, he is through, and they 
can go home to dinner. Listen: that last sen- 
tence must always be a surprise! You are to 
be the only man in the church who knows that 
it is the last one! Be careful about falling into 
habits which inform the congregation exactly 
when you are tapering off, and making ready 
to stop. If you do not watch yourself, you 
will always quit in the same way. ‘The congre- 
gation will have come to understand that when 


216 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


you shift your voice to a slightly lower register, 
and achieve a certain degree of fervency in your 
utterance, it is high time they began to fumble 
about, under the seats, feeling for their over- 
shoes. Surprise them with the novelty of the 
sermon’s close, just as you surprise them with 
the originality of its introduction. 

You cannot afford to use canned illustrations. 
If you haven’t enough imagination to capital- 
ize your own experiences and observations of 
life, it is exceedingly doubtful if you could tell 
anybody else’s story in a convincing manner. 
Now and again, in your reading, you will come 
across a yarn that does good business with your 
own emotions. It is entirely permissible to 
use it. Remember where you found it; and, 
when it fits exactly into what you happen to 
be doing, tell it as effectively as you know how. 
But to take down a volume of “sermonic illus- 
trations,’ in cold blood, after you had come to 
a standstill in your homiletic production and 
the thing seems to have hung on a dead centre, 
and go on a still hunt for some story that might 
presumably be twisted into some slight sem- 
blance of aptitude to your thesis—this sort of 
procedure would be merely ridiculous if it were 
not so dreadfully immoral ! 

After a preacher has been in the business for 
five years, he is likely to observe that he has 
only two or three pet themes. No matter what 
hole he goes in at, he is sure to come out, at 


SERMON-MAKING 217 


length, from his favorite exit. The congrega- 
tion learns, after a while, that no vigorous in- 
tellectual exercise will be required of it. The 
auditor needs do nothing but trudge, mentally, 
to the place where he knows the preacher is 
going to arrive, and there await his coming. 
One man is pretty certain, no matter what 
motion is before the house, to instruct the secre- 
tary to cast the ballot of the assembly for 
Brotherhood of Man. Of the half-dozen poems 
he knows, by heart, the one he recites most often 
is: “The house by the side of the road.” This 
is very good gospel; but this is not the whole 
gospel, by any means. Another man seems 
committed to the belief that his mission is 
largely one of consolation. He is always pray- 
ing for the sorrowing, and addressing himself 
to the depressed. His slogan is: “Let not your 
heart be troubled.” ‘This, too, is good gospel; 
but not all of it. Still another thinks it is his 
manifest destiny to encourage the more ardent 
and effective practice of prayer. Whatever he 
is doing, in the pulpit, he can be depended upon 
to manoeuvre himself about, from one vantage 
to another, until he arrives at the prayer con- 
cept where he feels perfectly at home, and at 
De DESE Gi bij wy cute 

Can you not be more versatile than that? 
The gospel you preach is inexhaustible. It 
touches all life, from hub to rim. Your con- 
gregation is composed of all sorts of people. 


218 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


Some of them can be challenged, some inspired, 
some led; some must be driven. Do not com- 
mit John Brand’s blunder in trying to make 
everybody in your constituency decide on “all 
or nothing!” You can make apostles out of 
some of them; others may be teachers; but “are 
all apostles ?’””—“‘are allteachers?’? Sometimes 
you should preach repentance. Be careful that 
you distinguish between repentance and re- — 
morse. Ordinarily, the “propulsive power of 
a new ideal”’ will take people further toward 
spirituality than any introspection urged upon 
them whereby they are required to examine 
their sins with tweezers and microscope. Vary 
the diet. Do not permit yourself to be carried 
away with the infatuation of some special line 
of research. 

Fresh from the seminary, you are full of the- 
ology. You should be. That is what theo- 
logical seminaries are for. This is the founda- 
tion—the flooring of your whole homiletic life; 
but you must not tear this up and hurl it at 
the people, Sunday after Sunday. Keep it in 
mind that many of the terms which have been 
in common use, in the school of the prophets, 
are utterly incomprehensible to the average 
layman. Keep close to the vernacular. If the 
people seem dull, and you are disposed to won- 
der if you are not casting your pearls before 
swine, examine your pearls first before passing 
judgment. 


SERMON-MAKING 219 


Whether the people will listen to you with 
confidence and respect, or with an attitude of 
distrust and irritation, is going to depend upon 
the manner of your speech, tone, gesture, and 
general appraisal of life. You can declare your 
beliefs with a growl, and lay down your prin- 
ciples with a bang, and excite resentment. If 
you are obviously tolerant of others’ views, ap- 
parently eager to learn, and not too cock-sure 
of everything you say, you may take almost 
any position, within reason, and retain the 
friendliness and regard of your congregation. 

Doubtless you are ambitious to become a 
great preacher. This hope does you credit. 
Keep it in mind that men may be very useful 
without becoming conspicuous outside the 
bounds of their own parishes. Ambition is 
attended by some grave dangers. Keep your 
ambition preserved in a solution of humility. 
Remember that the most eminent preacher who 
ever lived humbled Himself and became of no 
reputation. If it comes to pass that by indus- 
try, application, and the proper use of your 
talents, you should become a ranking member 
of our profession, known, far and wide, as a 
pulpit genius, so be it. If that never comes to 
pass, and you spend your ministry merely going 
about doing good, your name unknown except 
to those whose hearts you have touched by per- 
sonal contact, you may find satisfaction in re- 
membering that “many there be who have no 


220 THE MINISTER’S EVERYDAY LIFE 


memorial; who perished as though they had 
never been; but their righteousness hath not 
been forgotten, and the honor of their deeds 
cannot be blotted out.” 































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